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SPIRITUAL SANITY 

AND 

OTHER SERMONS 

BY 

Rev. SAMUEL H. VIRGIN, D.D., LL.D. 

Pastor Emeritus 

OF 

THE PILGRIM CHURCH OF NEW YORK 



AMERICAN TRACr SOC lE'l'V 

150 N ASS A I T S ri{ K F/r 
Boston New Vohk CmcAcio 






OCT. 18 fays 

QOK. ...*»«. ^ua-^ 
COPY B. 



Copyright, 1905, by 
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 



To 



€)^t pilgrim C^urt^ jof ^^to §^0rli 

Whose Service Has Been a Consuming Passion with Me for 
Nearly Thirty-four Years 

These Sermons Preached in Its Pulpit 



ARE 



Affectionately Dedicated 



I 



FOREWORD 

I HAVE long been accustomed to say in response to 
questions about my sermons that if they were not in 
the Hves of my people they could not be found else- 
where. A handful of notes represents many years of 
preaching. The sermon has to me never been an end 
in itself, only a channel of blessing. And it is only 
in answer to the entreaty of a host of friends in many 
lands that I have arranged the sermons for this vol- 
ume. The vividness and sudden sweep of thought 
may be missed by some. But that is the attendant of 
extempore preaching which has been my custom main- 
ly for thirty years. Always happy in preaching, I 
feel a degree of pleasure in using this pulpit of our 
beloved American Tract Society. 

Samuel H. Virgin. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Spiritual Sanity ...... 1 

11. Spiritual Coxference ...... 16 

III. Spiritual Intuitions ...... 31 

IV. The Personal Friendship of Christ . . .47 
V. The Brotherhood of Man .... 61 

VI. A Public Man Deserted by Spiritual Friends . 78 

VII. The Present Profit of Godliness ... 94 

VIII. An Exultant Cry 110 

IX. A Thrilling Vision . . . . . .126 

X. ''A Pillar of Salt and Its Lesson'' . . .140 

XL The Divine Ministry and Its Resi lt . . 154 

XII. Mountain Lessons . . . . . . .168 

XI 1 1. The Fraternal Greeting . . . . .183 

XIV. The Easter Message 198 

XV. Stephen 213 

XVI. '*The Prisoner's Sigh'* ...... 228 

XVII. Consternation at Defeat ..... 245 

XVIII. A Christmas Aftermath ..... 259 

XIX. The Finality and Blessedness of the Spiritual 

Life . 272 



SPIRITUAL SANITY 

"I am not mad, most noble Festusj but speak forth the words 
of truth and soberness." Acts 26: 25. 

We turn our eyes to a scene worthy the attention 
of the historic painter. Put in its proper grouping 
on the canvas, it would immortahze the artist, retain 
its hold upon human interest as long as any outhne 
remained and gather about it as distinguished a com- 
pany as the Madonna of Raphael in the Dresden 
gallery. 

It is the occasion of Paul's last sermon in Palestine. 
Twenty-three years have elapsed since he journeyed 
to Damascus intent on persecution, but was met and 
turned into the way of holiness by the Lord himself. 
These years have been full of labor. His name is 
known wherever the doctrine of Jesus has been preach- 
ed. He has formed churches in the great cities, has 
journeyed from Jerusalem to Corinth and left the im- 
press of his strong life on multitudes of souls. He 
has preached to the great congregation and to the 
small company of believers. Persecution has followed 



2 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

him and marred his body. Angered men have set upon 
him thirsting for his blood. Reports of him have 
been carried into palaces. His name has been spoken 
in the ears of kings. The despised Nazarene has been 
forced upon the attention of an unwilling world, and 
the hostile Jews have made the Lord more prominent 
by their turbulent proceedings in every city. 

Love for the crucified and risen Lord has deepened 
in the heart of Paul, his mind has laid hold upon the 
vastness of the truths he has taught and he is now 
within two years of the time when he writes of him- 
self as the "aged Paul." 

It is the year of our Lord 60 ; Paul is under arrest ; 
he has been tried before Felix, who "in the practice of 
all kinds of lust and cruelty exercised the power of a 
king with the temper of a slave," who trembled before 
the preaching of his prisoner, but without repentance, 
and kept him in custody in hope of a bribe. He has 
been brought before Festus, and to his amazement has 
uttered the word which instantly removed him from 
the jurisdiction of the governor and secured his pas- 
sage to Rome. He is now summoned before Agrippa, 
a visiting king, not for purpose of trial, for that is 
prevented by PauFs own act of appeal to Caesar, but 
really for the purpose of entertainment under the pre- 
tence of aiding the govei'nor in preparing the papers 
necessary to transmit to Rome. It furnishes Paul 
with one of the grandest opportunities of his hfe, that 
of preaching the Gospel of Jesus and the Resurrec- 



SPIRITUAL SANITY 3 

tlon in the presence of royalty, and he improves the 
privilege with a manliness and a power which moves 
the skeptic governor, and discloses the heartlessness of 
the last of the Herods. 

The scene is in the city of Csesarea, then populous 
and grand, now deserted and lone. We journey to the 
spot to-day and find a total absence of every sign of 
human life. Where once was grandeur, now is waste. 
Ruins lie close along the winding shore, projecting 
here and there into the sea and presenting huge masses 
of shattered masonry and piles of granite columns to 
the restless waves. In the interior all is ruin. Not a 
building remains entire. Not even the foundations of 
a building can be fully traced. The gate by which 
Peter entered was there; the ruins of the palace in 
which Paul preached were there; the remains of the 
harbor in which he embarked were there; the massive 
fragments of Eusebius' church were there ; the walls 
which the brave Crusaders built were there. But 
heaps of stones and rubbish, here a solitary column, 
there a disjointed arch, yonder a fragment of a wall, 
all encompassed or overgrown with thorns and briars 
and thistles, intermixed in spring with myriads of 
yellow marigolds and scarlet poppies. The famous 
harbor is choked up with sand and rubbish. The sigh- 
ing of the wind among the broken walls, the deep moan 
of the sea as each wave breaks upon the cavenious 
ruins of the ancient harbor, are the only sounds to be 
heard. No man is seen. The Arab and the shepherd 



% SPIRITUAL SANITY 

avoid the spot. The very birds and beasts shun It. 
The only hving creature seen by a traveler was a 
jackal in one of the crypts of the cathedral. 

But the words of Paul there spoken have lived, sur- 
viving all changes, and have been carried to the ends 
of the earth, yea, are read by travelers from distant 
climes amid the ruins of the palace where first he 
uttered them. But as we look upon the city as Paul 
knew it, we behold "every thing that could contribute 
to magnificence, amusement and health." It was the 
work of a Herod, and this family indulged to excess 
a taste for the colossal, the showy, the magnificent. 
"This city," says Josephus, "Herod adorned with most 
sumptuous palaces and large edifices for containing 
the people ; and what was the greatest and most labori- 
ous work of all, he adorned it with a haven that was 
always free from the waves of the sea." The edifices 
all along the circular haven were made of the most 
polished stone, with a temple upon an elevated spot. 
Here was the seat of the Imperial power. Heathen 
strangers were in its streets, and a Roman legion, 
6,000 infantry with a regiment of cavalry, sustained 
the power of the Procurator, whose residence was in 
the city. Into the gorgeous palace of Herod, into the 
auditorium used for purposes of public reception, 
trials and other state business, doubtless decorated in 
all the showy style of the Herodian period, Paul is led 
in chains. 

His audience has already assembled. Festus the 



SPIRITUAL SANITY 6 

Procurator of Judea, Agrippa King of Chalcis and 
President of the Temple at Jerusalem, in whose power 
lay the appointment of the High Priest, Bernice the 
profligate sister and doubtless incestuous wife of the 
young monarch, the chief military officers, in full 
military dress, together with the prominent citizens of 
Caesarea. 

Paul could desire no better audience. He has often 
preached to the lowly — he has now an audience of in- 
telligence and power. The opportunity repays for his 
continued imprisonment, and he sees the mercy of God 
in the privilege of these honored persons now to hear 
and receive the Gospel. He has not to plead for his 
life ; that is in Caesar's hand. He notes the regal dis- 
play of Agrippa, yet but thirty-two years of age ; he 
sees the rich apparel on the corrupt woman leading 
such a scandalous life ; he regards the pride of Festus 
in the splendid hall, the gorgeous trappings, the evi- 
dence of power, the military display, his exultation in 
the opportunity of thus regaling his distinguished 
visitors and feels a longing in his heart to win them 
all to Christ. 

With words of strange introduction from Festus, 
the waving of the jeweled hand of Agrippa, Paul 
stretches forth his hand from which the chain still 
hangs as mark of his imprisonment mid speaks. 

His appearance is in strong contrast with tlie pom- 
pous display in the hall, but he is by no means the 
least distinguished individual there. He has called 



6 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

them together ; it is to hear his story and gaze upon 
his person that they have turned from all other at- 
tractions in the splendid city. - He is between 50 and 
60 years of age, "short of stature, with long face, high 
forehead, an aquiline nose, close and prominent eye- 
brows," with full beard, clad in simple garments, 
doubtless much worn and weather-beaten, in an atti- 
tude expressing courage, strength of will, with man- 
ners indicative of a courteous and loyal soul, unawed 
by royal hearers, unaffected by his eminence as a 
Christian teacher, with an earnest look on his face as 
though his thoughts were fixed on some high subject, 
his chain clanking as he moves — well may he be con- 
sidered the most important man in the royal palace. 
The others are remembered only in their connection 
with him. 

He is at his best intellectually. His powers are all 
under control. Excitement does not disturb their bal- 
ance. The experience of many years in many and 
various assemblies has taught him to use his varied 
attainments with an equanimity of mind that marks 
him as a man of unusual strength. His learning is 
the servant of his piety and is made the vehicle of car- 
rying the glorious Gospel into the souls of his fellow 
men. His intellect is illumined with the hght that 
shines from that world where the glory of God doth 
lighten it and the Lamb is the light thereof. He has 
used his skill as a dialectician till to reason of righte- 
ousness, temperance and judgment to come with such 



SPIRITUAL SANITY 7 

power as to make the v/icked tremble Is easy for him. 
He knows whereof he affirms. 

His arguments are builded upon firm bases, and the 
warmth of a personal experience in the rich truths 
into which he seeks to lead his hearers glows through 
every address. There is nothing to indicate the fanatic 
alarmist. He is not a demagogue stirring up fac- 
tions among the people. He has not passed through 
these countries like a devouring flame, leaving a track 
of desolation to mark his progress, but as a wise 
thinker, a fervent teacher, a spiritual force. He has 
left groups of people in every place pondering on 
their duties to God and one another and seeking to be 
more faithful in every relation of life, and if the halo 
that illumined the face of Stephen does not radiate 
from his features, there is the light of intelligent piety 
in his face that the Hnes of suffering cannot efface, 
that makes the chain upon his wrist an evidence of 
some brutality outside himself. 

And as he stands speaking to this skeptic, heathen, 
worldly assembly, absorbed in his thought, entering 
again into the cloud of light, hearing again the voice 
of Jesus and moved again by the greatness of the com- 
mission given him from on high, the prisoner is lost 
in the Christian orator and thrills of emotion tell the 
royal hearers that they are listening to no ordinary 
man. Courteous and considerate of the powers that 
be, he has no flattery for princely ears. He stands to 
speak for Christ. 



8 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

He passes from an allusion to Agrippa's Jewish 
knowledge to a declaration of the strictness of his 
early life ; he rises easily into "the hope of the prom- 
ises made of God unto our fathers/' and declares the 
point of Jewish accusal of himself. In terse and 
glowing sentences he relates the story of his conver- 
sion, and the message that was delivered to him. He 
avers his faithfulness to the heavenly vision, and 
acknowledging the source of all his strength calmly 
declares, "Having, therefore, obtained help of God, I 
continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and 
great, saying none other things than those which the 
prophets and Moses did say should come: that Christ 
should suffer and that he should be the first that should 
rise from the dead and should show light unto the peo- 
ple and to the Gentiles." 

His audience is profoundly moved at this simple,, 
straightforward address. His loyalty to the unseen 
Christ, the murdered man of Calvary, the focussing 
of such stupendous results upon the alleged stealing 
of this man's body from the tomb by his disciples, 
which Paul affirms as his rising from the dead, carries 
him beyond the comprehension of the selfish Roman, 
and Festus, excited and showing his excitement in the 
loudness of his tones, breaks into his discourse with the 
words, "Paul, thou art beside thyself ; much learning 
doth make thee mad." 

With dignity, with marvellous composure, and with 
a directness that in themselves made the charge of 



SPIRITUAL SANITY 9 

madness a mockery, Paul replied, "I am not mad, most 
noble Festus, but speak forth the words of truth and 
soberness.'' He appeals to the king and with a sanity 
that gave the Jewish monarch trouble of mind and 
conscience pressed the question, "Believest thou the 
prophets?" And then, with a pathos that must have 
touched every heart, expressed the longing that all 
might have the knowledge and joy in God that was 
his portion, might be as he, and as his eye falls upon 
his chain or as his ear catches the sound of its clank- 
ing, with royal magnanimity he adds, "except these 
bonds." 

The charge of madness which was met by this 
declaration of the Apostle has been made by the Festus 
of every age and community, and is still best met by 
the declaration and exhibit of the truth and soberness 
of the faith once delivered to the saints. 

It was wonderful that no charge of madness was 
made against Paul when, according to his own asser- 
tion, he punished Christians in every synagogue and 
compelled them to blaspheme, and being exceedingly 
mad against them, he persecuted them even unto 
strange cities. He was then the rising young man of 
the Jewish church. It was not upon this portion of 
his address that Festus based his charges of madness, 
nor was it in this experience tliat Paul found tlic an- 
swer to the charge. The world doos not count its 
votaries mad when they expend strength, health and 
fortune in a vain effort for fleeting pleasure or ephein- 



10 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

eral fame. 'Tis only when they turn strength, health 
and fortune into channels of permanent worth that 
this cry is heard. 

What was the ground on which such a thought 
could have entered any mind concerning Paul as he 
stood in the majesty of his manhood in the palace of 
Herod, in the auditorium of Festus ? It did not show 
itself in his personal appearance, his intellect, nor his 
life. He was a burden to no one. Multitudes felt his 
presence a blessing and wept when he passed out of 
sight. He had taken into account spiritual reahties, 
and lived under their influence. No less a. man in all 
that concerns manhood, he was more a citizen of a 
spiritual commonwealth in which truth and soberness 
were crowned virtues, and the only evidence of mad- 
ness was the refusal to walk in the darkness of the 
past, to live by old rules of duty that were musty with 
age and inapplicable to present requirements, to sub- 
ject his noblest thoughts and richest knowledge to the 
thraldom of tyrannous priests, to bury his Hving soul 
in the dark tomb of Jewish infidelity, and to be put 
away in the sarcophagus of the Jewish church. 

He had heard a voice from heaven, he had received 
spiritual enlightenment ; a sinning world, a suffering 
Saviour, ransomed souls, were now to him as steiTi 
realities as tent-making. To be unfaithful to this in- 
struction, to this enlargement of his spiritual horizon, 
would be a madness indeed. To escape from destruc- 
tion that is imminent, to seek to rescue the exposed by 



SPIRITUAL SANITY 11 

perilling self evokes the cry of madness only from 
those who are blind to the danger. And if there be 
such blindness, the charge of madness is increased in 
propoTtion to the gifts and graces of the awakened 
soiul. 

It is said that Mr. Moody was generally known in 
Chicago as "Crazy Moody." 

Dr. Amot writes : A few years ago, in the United 
States, a young woman of taste and genius burst into 
sudden and great celebrity as a brilliant writer in the 
periodical literature of the day. After a youth of con- 
stant and oppressive struggle she found herself at 
length an object of admiration and envy throughout 
her native land. The world was all before her; the 
ball was at her foot. Fanny Forester's troubles were 
over and her fortune made. She has reached the 
throne at last and may now sit as a queen in the high- 
est circles of American society. The fashionable world 
had no sooner recognized and accepted their favorite 
than rumors began to be spread, muffled at first, but 
anon breaking out in clear tones and distinct articula- 
tion, that their chosen heroine had consented to be the 
wife of Judson, now far advanced in life, and to 
plunge with him into the darkest heart of licatliendom, 
there to burn her life lamp down to the socket, learn- 
ing a barbarous language, training a cruel race, and 
contending with a pestilential climate — all that she 
might make known the love of Jesus to an uncivilized 
and idolatrous nation. 



12 SPIRITT.\\L SAXITY 

To £annah she went; did and bore her Saviour^s 
win there, till life could hold oat no longer; and then 
came home to die. "'The woman is mad," ^^'^'^ from 
end to e/ - -Imerica, eciioing and re-eehwng 

thitmgh the mar:^ :: -rade and the salcms of fashion, 
^Hhe woman is mad." Herself caught the word and the 
thoo^iit, and like the liber \-pd Hebrews in the wilder- 
ness, consecrated what be . ,d borrowed from the 
Egyptians to tie service c: :r.e Lord. She wrote and 
pdUished ?n e— 7 :r "T: e AI re— of ^lissicmary 
Enterprise," ui ^iiicn -re eri.iveiv turned the 
mcmej-making and pleas rre-iir^ world of her own 
people upside dovn. Tire r i — irrry cleared hersdf 
and her cause, irr^rr^ the iz:rr:r::rn of rradness 
lyingcmthec ir ie. 

And now aii^r :„ese many yer::"s have -o-.s-e^d. "::ere 
has arisen in the heart of this ^r r: :: r : 1^5 : " r :i 
which the eyes r: :ire civilized world are turned, on the 
sooUi side of Wa^hingtim Square, between wealth and 
want, one of ihe most imposing structures of ihe city 
as a memorial of him whose name she took and whose 
labors she shared; and this has been erected by the 
efforts of him who as an infant boy she took to her 
loring l^art as she reached the heathen land and for 
whcm she performed the loving offiises of a mother. 
Who is mad? The Christian or ihe skeptic? 

Who has not heard this cry of Festus breakiQg in 
upon the earnest appeal for Christian ocmsecratifMi, 
soimdinc^ in loud disscm^mce amid the sweet calls to 



SPIRITUAL SANITY 13 

Christ and His salvation? Luther heard it from the 
rnonks in the monasteries of Germany ; Knox heard it 
in the rugged speech of Scotland ; WiclifF heard it as 
he gave the Bible to the people, and the Puritans 
heard it as they went from a tyrannous eccleciastical 
establishment; Whitfield heard it in tones that had 
penetrated the ears of the Wesleys ; Edwards heard 
it at Northampton ; Carey heard it when he gave birth 
to the missionary enterprise. 

Many a young disciple of Christ has heard it in 
humble circles and exalted station. It is the devil's 
protest against the saved soul, and the winds that 
blow bleak from the realm of lost souls fan it into a 
cyclone as it sweeps around the will of the struggling 
son of man. But there is ever to be opposed to it 
those words of truth and soberness, adamantine pil- 
lars sunk into the depths of Deity, rising into the alti- 
tudes of infinity, against which the fretting storms of 
time, the empty cries of men batter in vain. 

The cry of madness condemned Festus to an imbe- 
cility of mind that the world sees to»-day. The answer 
of Paul elevated him to a height of sanity so that the 
world owns him her instructor through nineteen hun- 
dred years. The close of Paul's Palestine ministry is 
the declaration of the soberness of tliose who hold the 
truth of Jesus and the Resurrection. 

As the royal company attracted attention by their 
pomp and glittering jewels at the beginning of tliis 
incident, all the military officers eager toi catch sight 



U SPIRITUAL SANITY 

of the opulent Syrian king and his admired sister, aU 
the Caesarean nobles anxious to observe every move- 
ment of the renowned visitors, at the close of the scene 
Paul has captured the attention of all. Festus with 
disturbed spirit gazes intently upon him, Agrippa 
with biting conscience and sullen lip beholds the man 
whose powerful soul courts and chains cannot subdue, 
and all the haughty crowd forget themselves, their 
ruler and their guests, enchanted by the opulent grace 
and wisdom of the fettered prisoner. Guilty of noth- 
ing but nobleness of soul, they all conclude that but 
for his appeal to Csesar he might have had his liberty 
again. 

The charge of madness was therefore momentous 
and passionate. An insane man should not be freed. 
The parchments and friends with whom so many hours 
had been spent should not be suffered to increase his 
madness. So hollow is the charge that it perishes with 
the utterance then and now. 

It is vain to cry "madness" to consecrated souls. It 
is vain to cry "madness" to historic Christianity. 

If Paul's response was above challenge in that early 
day, how unanswerable is the sober reply of Christian 
truth in this latter time. 

What are those words of so much power? They are 
those that predicate the resurrection of Jesus Christ 
from the dead ; they are those that declare that light 
shines upon the great problems of man's immortahty 
and his freedom from the thraldom of sin ; they are 



SPIRITUAL SANITY 15 

those that proclaim hope for all the world — for every 
class, for every creature; they are those that dispel 
fear, that awaken confidence in God, that assure the 
sin-laden son of sorrow that he is not forgotten, that 
though he die he shall live again in beauty immortal. 
The words are weighty with the gathered facts of the 
centuries. Christianity does not call for the ranting 
fanatic to proclaim her messages, she is not dependent 
upon the alarmed lunatic to arouse the world. She 
sends forth her sons of sober mind and bids them 
speak her words of solid truth, more massive than the 
marble, more polished than the diamond, ghttering 
and glowing with light divine. Would that we could 
send them forth as the bugle blast among the hills, 
echoing and re-echoing, winding through the valleys 
in long reduplications of sweetness till every ear is 
reached ! Would that we could send them forth as the 
light from the great orb of heaven as it enters every 
crevice, bathes every leaf, brings out the perfume 
from every flower, calls up the sap from its well-stored 
chambers, clothing the earth with verdure and filling 
it with fruit, so evidencing its mighty power ! Would 
that we could send them into the darkened minds, into 
the bleeding hearts, into the sin-crushed spirits of the 
thousands in this city with all the emphasis of Christ's 
own lips upon them ! Would that we could send them 
forth with the unction of their primal utterance till at 
the name of Jesus every knee should bow and all the 
world be his ! 



II 

SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE 

**I conferred not with flesh and blood." — Galatians 1:16. 

This declaration of the Apostle Paul, though only 
a bit of his experience as related in this first chapter 
of Galatians, is the key that unlocks the secret of his 
clear understanding of the truth of Christ and his 
masterly defence of the same. Though he had never 
seen the earthly body of the Lord nor listened to the 
pubhc and private teachings which enriched the souls 
of other Apostles, no one gives more lucid teaching, 
nor better unfolds the lessons, germ thoughts of which 
fell from the Master's lips. Though he was not called 
like Matthew, who from his place at the receipt of 
custom heard the Lord's voice, saying, "Follow me," 
he was none the less called to be an Apostle. Though 
unlike Mark in enjoying the pious instructions of a 
mother and the direct teaching of Peter in preparation 
for his holy work, he was none the less prepared for 
subtle argument and bold attack. Though the Evan- 
gelist Luke received his truth from eye-witnesses and 
ministers of the Word and bears the marks of Paul's 

16 



SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE 17 

instruction and hastens to acknowledge it in the outset 
of his writing, Paul acknowledges no> such teachers 
and fails not constantly to assert his independence of 
them, and yet his teaching was none the less authorita- 
tive. Though the beloved disciple enjoyed the friend- 
ship of John the Baptist and thus early was prepared 
for the close intimacy that followed with Jesus, yet 
even he in the sweet musings of his chastened and 
sanctified soul does not call forth richer harmony than 
that which swelled and poured forth from the soul of 
him who declared that he was as one bom out of due 
time. Herein is one of those strong illustrations of the 
spirituality of the Christian Faith, and the whole ex- 
planation of Paul's power is found in the words of 
the text, "I conferred not with flesh and blood." 

Two valuable lessons confront us here. 1st. The 
source of true convictions. 2d. The source of success- 
ful activity. 

1st. A spiritual manifestation of Jesus Christ had 
impressed Paul's soul, and in the longing for higher 
instruction concerning the revelation, for lasting 
benefit, for profounder movements upon his soul, he 
turned to the spiritual source of that which he had 
already received and conferred not with flesh and blood 
in reference to it. Out of this experience came tli^it 
matchless teaching given with no uncertainty botli to 
the Romans and the Corinthians concerning tlie reve- 
lations of the Divine Spirit, the beauty and force of 
Christian truth when it is spiritually discerned. Tlie 



18 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

example which is thus brought to our notice is too 
illustrious to be ignored; the precious fruits which 
were garnered under the spiritual instruction which 
Paul received are of too high a value to be despised or 
neglected. The necessities of our own spiritual nature 
are so great, its strength so feeble, its attainments so 
puerile, its parasitic tendency so evident and active 
that it is refreshing to behold a man of Hke passions 
with ourselves turning from the scaffolding of human 
invention, and without any conference with the powers 
of this world in flesh and blood, stand forth, flushed 
with health, a clear eye, a strong pulse, a vigorous 
soul, a quiet conscience, a firm purpose, every faculty 
of his being in happy holy exercise to make that pur- 
pose eff'ective, the cankering chains of sin's thralldom 
broken, every fetter unriveted, the man an absolute 
freeman in Christ Jesus. 

The course pursued by Paul carries its powerful 
lesson to all who would attain like solidity of charac- 
ter, like poise of soul amid conflicting thoughts and 
emotions. With the wonderful revelation of spiritual 
truth which was made to him on the road to Damascus, 
there came a need of calm deliberation, of personal 
spiritual activity, divorced for a time from the sug- 
gestions and the helps of earthly friends, an adjust- 
ment of the truth received to the character and 
wants of the soul. This process is facilitated by 
special spiritual influences, is guided to bhssful re^ 
suits by the Divine Spirit himself. The deepest con- 



SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE 19 

victions of any soul are thus obtained and thus made 
permanent. 

A conviction of the reahty of eternal things must 
have the atmosphere of eternity about it to attain 
legitimate proportions ; compared with things earthly, 
entering only into the computations of things that 
perish, measured only by the reach of things tem- 
poral, submitted only to the consideration and counsel 
of finite, limited, cramped intelligence, it fails of re- 
ceiving that increased weight and producing that 
larger impression upon the truly spiritual nature that 
would accrue from conference with him who is Spirit 
and from whom alone proceeds every truly spiritual 
influence and impression, moving men to the higher 
ranges of thought and life. Weighty as are the 
thoughts of cultured minds, helpful as are the counsels 
of profound philosophers, strengthening as is the 
grasp of the loving hand, inspiring as is the sound of 
the voice of human sympathy, there are times when 
these all should be ignored for a season for a higher, 
holier, more spiritual conference than these afford and 
into which the intruding thought or voice of man 
must not be permitted to enter. 

Paul is not an exceptional illustration of the course 
of those who have attained colossal spiritual propor- 
tions. Moses was thus prepared to bo the law-giver 
to Israel ; even Jesus declares it as fact in his life. All 
those who have at any time profoundly impressed the 
world with the strength of their spiritual character, 



«0 SPIRITUAL SANITY, 

the holy beneficence of their spiritual influence, have 
been the sons and daughters of spiritual conference. 
To flesh and blood they have said : "Stand aside for a 
season — that which is spiritual must be spiritually 
discerned." The struggles which have glorified man 
have not been upon the plains and hillsides, whose bat- 
tle smoke has hid from pitying angels the stream of 
human blood, in which nations have sought to settle 
disputed claims, nor yet in chambers where the heated 
brain has melted ores of thought to flow in silvery 
eloquence, or clash in rugged conflict with opposing 
thought and lift on whirlwinds of debate men and par- 
ties into lasting prominence. Man is not glorified by 
the struggles that smut his hands with cankered gold, 
and waste the holy energies of mind and spirit in fran- 
tic paroxysms after fleeting fame. This is a struggle 
that weakens and often debases. In it the muscles 
knot and are not nourished and paralysis ensues. 

There is a struggle that ends in strength. On 
plains far Hfted above these, on thoughts too moun- 
tainous for sluggish souls to climb, where the pet son 
is the sacrifice and the eye of God alone beholds the 
strife — away from the din, the clash, the snarl of 
earthly wranglers, the smitten soul has betaken itself, 
and God has beheld a struggle pregnant with glory, 
from which immortal happiness has sprung and on 
which has hinged the comforts of thousands on whom 
has poured the full light of benefactions whose roseate 
hue here dawned upon the wresthng soul. The forts 



SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE 21 

and bastions whose fall has raised the loudest shout in 
heaven, and brought the most enduring worth to man, 
have been carried when, by conference with God and a 
resultant allied strength with him, the soul has at- 
tained a moral omnipotence before which the forces of 
sin have melted away like frost-work before the full 
blaze of the meridian sun. 

It is not the arm of flesh that deals the mightiest 
blows ; it is not the brain in whose delicate tissues 
thought is most active that wields the sharpest scim- 
eter; it is not the heart whose blood-beats are most 
regular and full, that pulses most of joy and sympa- 
thy and love into the human race; the arm may be 
feeble, the brain weak, the heart faltering, and before 
the giant strength of the soul dwelling in these crime 
may tremble, and personal sin be throttled and chain- 
ed. The conviction of the right and the way of secur- 
ing it may be so clear and regnant that nothing can 
stand before it. The great movements of soul that 
have lifted the accumulated crust of error and super- 
stition in the different epochs of the world's history 
have been inaugurated and carried forward by those 
whose plans have been submitted to other conference 
than that of flesh and blood and whose pre-eminent 
peculiarity has been that of spiritual conviction, sus- 
tained and deepened by constant contact, with its pri- 
mal inspiration. 

Those men who in every period of the cluirch havo 
most contributed to her welfare by their succoiis in 



22 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

public preaching, in private ministrations or in mould- 
ing her statements of truth, and in their elucidation, 
have borne the stamp of that untranmieled conference 
with God apart from men to which the soul is invited 
and whither it must go for strength and blessing and 
the solution of every spiritual question. The rituals 
of no church, however carefully prepared, the minis- 
trations of no preacher, however wisely directed, can 
suffice for that intimate communion with God, con- 
cerning the soul's wants, and his provision for its 
necessities — a conference into which only the spiritual 
elements of the problem are allowed to enter. We 
must he closeted with God. And the necessity is not 
only upon those who are to be the master spirits of 
every age, to mould its thought and guide its councils, 
whose names are to be before the world, and whose 
words are to be weighed by succeeding generations. 

Spiritual conference is the need not only of the 
prominent but as well of the obscure ; not only of the 
mighty but as well of the weak ; not only of the learned 
but as well of the ignorant; not only of the teacher 
but as well of the taught ; not only of the aged but as 
well of the child ; the lesson is for all. The source of 
strong spiritual conrictions is in spiritual communion 
with God, and every such conviction must be made the 
subject of prolonged spiritual conference for its true 
place in moulding and controlling the being. 

The impressions that come we know not whence, the 
impulses that quicken thought and f eehng are all to be 



SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE 23 

examined, not in the family, the club, the church alone, 
but in the Mount of God, that their relation to the 
Divine may be known. This does not necessitate an 
absolute ignoring of all parental and friendly advice ; 
it does not raise one's head into the clouds far above 
the reach of loving words, nor does it imply a mis- 
anthropic spirit, a dislike of human councils, a separa- 
tion from mankind to live with Thoreau on the banks 
of some Walden Pond; it does not require a fancied 
superiority of soul to decide all questions by some 
esoteric reflections and instruction, but rather an em- 
phasis upon the spiritual nature and its divinely pro- 
vided privileges and possibilities. 

The glory of Protestantism is that every soul may 
have direct contact with God; that the intervening 
hand of man, the obtruding ear of man, the prattling 
tongue of man may be removed and Christ alone make 
the soul acquainted with God and at home in his pres- 
ence. The first work then that invites a soul conscious 
in the least of its sin is a conference with God. Paul 
fled to Arabia, into the desert southeast of Damascus ; 
he was gone probably three years, then he came to 
Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter, was driven 
away in a fortnight, "came afterwards into the re- 
gions of Syria and Cilicia and was unknown by face 
unto the churches of Judea which were in Christ, but 
they had heard only that he which persecuted us in 
times past now preacheth the faith which, once he de- 
stroyed." His talk with God and examination of liis 



u 



SPIRITUAL SANITY 



life in view of the new conviction which he had re- 
ceived led him to a deep sense of his spiritual needs 
and the revelation of Christ satisfied that want. The 
work which was then in process was a purely personal 
work; those hours were more valuable to him as an 
individual than any others in his life, for, after all, 
the great value of his conversion toi Paul was not that 
he should preach the Gospel to the Gentiles and unfold 
Christ for future generations, but that he, Paul, 
should be saved, become a joint-heir with Christ to 
priceless riches in the Kingdom of God. 

A like work pertains to each of us ; we may not go 
down into the desert and abide three years, but go 
into the close presence of God alone we must, if we 
would secure salutary results from our spiritual im- 
pressions, if we would have them deepened into con- 
victions to rule our lives. They came from God what- 
ever the channel which brought them into our spirits, 
and they call to God with a voice equal to their inten- 
sity. The conference with father or mother, with hus- 
band or wife, with pastor or friend is right, must be 
seasonable, but that is not the first work; go you, O 
stricken soul, immediately to God. Wherever you are 
on the instant of conviction, flee to the secret place of 
the Most High and abide under the shadow of the 
Almighty ; disclose to him the workings of your heart. 

It is no childish play to talk aloud alone to God, and 
examine the secret workings of the soul. To it you 
are expressly called of God; conceal nothing — ^tell 



SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE 25 

without fear of rebuke the sin which oppresses you, 
which stifles you — tell of the closeness of the moral 
atmosphere in which you dwell — tell the desire for 
pardon which you feel. The royalty of heaven will 
listen ; God incarnate in Jesus Christ shed tears at 
such recital on this earth ; unveil, disrobe the soul and 
stay with God till he has clad it in the robes of Jesus' 
righteousness and then come forth and confess him 
before men. If a fear and dread of earthly conference 
controls you, you need have no fear of spiritual con- 
ference; that, too, will fit for a subsequent work as 
nothing else will do within the soul's utmost possibili- 
ties. You will come forth weak and trembling per- 
haps, but only with that weakness which precedes com- 
pacted strength. You will resemble the buildings 
which the early visitors to the Peruvian settlements 
found along that coast — poorly built, thatched with 
straw and unilluminated by a single window but glow- 
ing within with tapestries of gold and silver, and 
in time the whole shall be rebuilt in beauty and in 
strength. 

To-day the Divine Spirit waits to give counsel, to 
give hope and assurance. Obedience to this call of the 
Spirit alone secures settlement of the troubled and 
vexed questions that disturb the peace. Here no voice 
speaks of a more convenient season ; here is no parley- 
ing with fancied scientific errors ; liere the cosmogony 
of the universe does not intrude, nor the deluge of 
Noah trouble, nor the apparent inconsistencies of 



26 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

Scripture narrative steal up like ghosts to frighten 
from the gospel ground. These all are chained to 
human conference and appear only as the least Impor- 
tant questions to vex the soul or hinder Its progress. 
The business relations of life dwindle into their proper 
Insignificance when viewed in their spiritual and eter- 
nal relations. Only as we hold such conference with 
God, can we properly understand the vastness of the 
claim he has upon us, and the enormity of that sin, 
w^hatever it be, that prevents hearty obedience to his 
revealed will. 

Nor is this conference to be confined to the primary 
spiritual experiences. These all settled, other ques- 
tions appear of such serious Importance and gravity 
that their decision may not be entrusted to human 
council. Motives to action are often subtle and well 
nigh obscured In the atmosphere of earth; they need 
to be taken into the rarer atmosphere of the high table- 
lands of faith and prayer ; they need to be made sub- 
jects of prolonged conference with God. The ques- 
tions of right and wrong, the proper attitude for the 
soul to sustain towards men and parties and creeds and 
society standards and amusements, the principles that 
shall govern action In all doubtful hours and emer- 
gencies must be determined In these silent hours with 
God. The source of all strong convictions Is here. 
When stamped Into the being by the hand of God they 
become Indelible ; criticism of the world, condemnation 
of others does not affect them ; the fires of persecution 



SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE n 

cannot burn them out, nor the warning of the timid 
prevent their utterance. 

Convictions are often troublesome in the world, but 
they are the evidence of spiritual communion that com- 
mands the careful consideration of all. Paul's mature 
thoughts and his grand system of truth was the fruit 
of his spiritual conference. Luther knew its power ; 
Bernard felt its inspiration ; Carey realized its worth, 
and they came forth to preach and sing, and evange- 
lize the world against the sneers and persecution of 
lesser souls. If you will mature your thought and 
settle your doubts, and work out your difficulties in 
this way, this church will become mighty through God 
to the pulling down of the strongholds of sin. It is in 
hours of uncertainty that this becomes our choice priv- 
ilege. Questions that are thus settled are apt to be 
settled right ; those that are decided on human advice 
alone are still unsettled. 

2 — The Source of Successful Activity. Tliis is 
found at the source of wisdom and might. When con- 
vinced of the propriety of any step in the interest of 
the soul not yet taken, any progressive movement to- 
wards the high standards of life in Jesus Christ, then 
is the hour to adopt and conform to the words of tlie 
text. Will power is mighty, but the omnipotence of 
God is greater, and this is promised to the sons of 
faith. He only is faithful in this world who acts 
promptly and fully up to the mark of his spiritual 
convictions. How sliall one face the liowlin<j: crowd 



28 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

that blocks the way of him who turns from long habits 
of thought and declares them false to move success- 
fully along a higher plane of thinking and living? 
How shall one be prepared for the desertion of 
friends ? 

How shall one be made strong to speak his thoughts 
in critical and hostile ears ? How shall one endure the 
sneers of lips that oft have praised, the blistering 
words of captious critics, the malicious distortion of 
motives and the nightly owl hoots of constant watch- 
ers — how? but by the Pauline method of turning from 
flesh and blood and obtaining spiritual might from 
spiritual sources. However great the difficulty to be 
overcome in following the promptings of the soul, 
however small it be, the same course is commended to 
all, since the source of success in life and action is 
here. Led by the Divine Spirit has many a man pon- 
dered and groped his way through brambles and over 
rocks, and the value of his future work has been in 
proportion to the depth and character of his confer- 
ence with God in the passing hours which he spent in 
the desert. 

This course is not strange, nor out of harmony with 
the suggestions of reason. With higher convictions of 
duty, with clearer views of truth inflashed and infixed 
by God, day by day should men be seen mounting 
higher cliffs, seeking a nobler Hfe. Month by month 
should members of a congregation come forth from 
the audience chamber of God, filled with holy love, 



SPIRITUAL CONFERENCE 29 

nerved with celestial strength, fortified by the con- 
scious presence of their Lord and God. The glow 
should be on some face continually as it gleamed from 
the face of Moses as he came from the mount. One by 
one we are going into the heavens ; we are becoming 
pure spirits whether we will or not; our conferences 
with men cease, with God they must begin. It is well 
to be familiar with the Lord, to know his will, to be 
obedient to his commands, to have his approval upon 
every adopted plan of hfe. 

I call to you to-day, young men, before whom roll 
the waves of a restless life, before you venture where 
the depth of sea shall give tremendous swell to the 
waves, hold conference with God that his strength 
may be imparted to you. Day follows day; weeks 
multiply ; earthly friends suffice for all you need, but 
at length the storm cloud hovers on the horizon, clouds 
the heavens, beats the sea to froth, opens seams in the 
vessel which creaks and cracks like egg shell in the 
grasp of strength. Then how shall you endure if you 
have sailed without any divine direction, if Christ be 
not on board to counsel, to steady and to save? 

Confer with God, young maidens. Fashion, folly, 
vanity call for your time ; music, poetry, painting 
allure you to their salons ; the conference with tlie 
world is attractive; the demands of that mystic ma- 
tron, society, are numerous, imperative, but wliilo you 
heed them, judiciously confer with God. Tliere may 
be for you a holier work than you have planned, a 



so SPIRIITJAL SANITY 

more celestial mission than the hps of fashion have 
ever yet whispered. Leave flesh and blood awhile and 
lovingly confer with God. 

O friends, what holier message could I bring you 
to-day than this, if by heeding it you found new joy 
and peace in God. Care, anxiety, grief are your daily 
portions ; of them you speak each day, as families you 
plan for their removal, or for their adjustment to 
your strength; the words concerning them are often 
upon your lips. Go talk of them to God. Take into 
the mount for a long conference, but most of all go 
with a burning wish to seek new spiritual strength, 
new spiritual hght to-day. Dear Church of Christ, 
would you present a solid, compacted strength to wres- 
tle with sin in this community, w^ould you flash a clear, 
unspotted, undimmed radiance into all this region, 
then must you follow Paul as he followed Christ, and 
in the power of new unity, new love and new consecra- 
tion come forth from the communion with the Divine 
Being to a grander work than yet has been achieved. 

Only as the church becomes spiritual from fresh 
inspiration from the source of power can she meet a 
critical scholarship, a combative disposition, a worldly 
spirit and the oppositions of wicked spirits in high 
places ; but with the f urnishments from the spiritual 
armory her foes shall all be overcome for the weapons 
of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through 
God. A spiritual man is the mightiest ally of truth ; 
a spiritual church is resistless. 



Ill 

SPIRITUAL INTUITIONS 

**When thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee." John 1 : 48. 

When these words were first spoken by the Lord 
they produced a starthng effect upon the guileless 
Israelite to whom they were addressed. He was not 
suddenly entrapped in a spiritual net that had been 
warily laid for him, yet he responded instantly to 
these words : ^'Rabbi, thou art the Son of God ; thou 
art the King of Israel." 

It was not after years of profound teaching nor 
months of miracle working so that the land was full 
of his fame, but it was on the threshold of the Master's 
work that this conversation occurred. 

Andrew and Peter had become disciples, Jesus had 
also called Philip, and these three men of Bethsaida 
were his followers. There is no record of any instruc- 
tion that he had given. John had baptized him, tlie 
heavens had given their witness ; eTohn, too, had said, 
"Behold the Lamb of God." And now Philip has found 
his friend Nathanacl, brought him with the doubt and 
sneer still curling his lip to hear the greeting, "Behold 



31 



h 



32 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile." Thei sneer 
is lost in astonishment, and in reply to the question, 
"Whence knowest thou me?" the words of the text 
were given and Nathanael was a firm disciple. 

What manner of man is this, we ask, that so slight 
an utterance in his hearing produces so stupendous an 
effect? Others listened to long discourses, sweet with 
the fragrance of heaven, persuasive with the eloquence 
of truth, and stirring with the power of gracious ora- 
tory, but turned away, rejecting the preaching and 
the preacher, sometimes enraged to the point of per- 
sonal violence. This man yielded at a single sentence. 

"With but httle persuasion thou wouldst fain make 
me a Christian," might the bystander say, "if this is 
a sample for us all," though the little of Paul's ad- 
dress to Agrippa was abundance compared with this 
remark to Nathanael. 

Nor was this Israelite a weak and fickle man. The 
guilelessness of his spirit is not an evidence of puer- 
ility ; he is not a man of credulity, led by every new 
teacher and swayed readily by every new impulse, fol- 
lowing the latest teacher who aspired to be a leader 
and crying "Rabbi" to every one who startled his in- 
tellect by the presentation of sparkling truths which 
might be errors in disguise. He was a calm, thought- 
ful man ; he had no impetuosity like Peter and was not 
easily betrayed into a false position. St. Augustine 
denies that he was one of the twelve disciples under 
the name of Bartholomew, on the ground that he was 



SPIRITUAl. INTUITIONS 33 

most likely a learned man in the law of Moses, and 
Christ preferred to choose unlettered men to confound 
the wise. When Philip met him he awakened his in- 
terest by the declaration, "We have found him of whom 
Moses in the law and prophets did write, Jesus of 
Nazareth, the son of Joseph." 

That he was a man of acute penetration and bal- 
anced powers is evident from the Kttle we know of him, 
and the cordiaHty of Christ's greeting is an assur- 
ance that he was both sensible and sound. 

We must account, then, in some rational way for 
the effect of this simple sentence upon him. Why 
should the thought that he was observed as he sat 
under the dense shade of the fig tree have so quickly 
removed his doubt and given birth to such forcible 
testimony concerning him to whom Philip had brought 
him? A calm mind weighs evidence, adjusts so-called 
proofs before judgment is pronounced. A judicious 
spirit does not make proclamation of the deepest 
things in life on a cursory examination, and surely 
there is nothing deeper than the discovery of the pres- 
ence of the Son of God, the King of Israel, and his 
acceptance as the soul's Rabbi or Master. 

There was more to Nathanacl in this remark of 
Christ than appears on the surface. He put a power- 
ful lens upon it and read great truths and saw miglity 
evidence of the greatness of him who stood before him. 
His purity of spirit enabled him to discern quickly 
what to others was clouded by their own defective 



34 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

spirituality. "The pure in heart shall see God." The 
guileless spirit shall detect the essence of divinity 
where others see but rude cabalistic signs. 

It Avas because of the great cluster of truths and 
powers that he knew to be in the spirit of him who 
spoke these words that he gave him so instantly the 
trust of his heart. As Leverrier demonstrated the 
existence of a planet beyond Uranus by its own ir- 
regular movements before any eye had seen it, and at 
length, through a powerful telescope, the planet Nep- 
tune was found just where it had been shown that it 
ought to be, so did Nathanael, w^ith a wise penetration, 
discover what lay beyond by acute observation of that 
which was in sight, and it may be that that which 
flashed upon him will give its light also to us, and that 
which brought confession to his Hps will bring a yet 
more devout and fulsome utterance to ours. 

It was a purely personal truth concerning Na- 
thanael alone that Jesus made known. The value of 
the jewel did not disappear with the brilliant lustre 
that flashed upon him — the truth was not exhausted 
in its application to him. All that was good for him 
is equally available for us. 

There is in every human life at times a sense of 
isolation. Often we long for it and cannot obtain it. 
We are so situated that the chains fetter us and hold 
us in connection T\^th our f ellowmen so that the wail of 
childhood, the monotone of business, the shriek of suf- 
fering, the wild whistle of the tempest gale of life 



SPIRITUAL INTUITIONS 35 

sounds in our ears and disturbs the calm of our spirits. 
We fret under the constant attrition of the world. 
We sigh for the place of perfect rest, where no vibra- 
tion of air, stirred by the pulse of human woe or want, 
shall break the quiet of our repose. We yearn for an 
hour in which we shall be secluded from all and hear 
only the beating of our own hearts, and note only the 
sensations of our own being ; where no< buzzing insect 
and no intruding bird shall startle the utter abandon 
of our spirits. We want an hour for scrutiny of self, 
where we can read aloud our deepest thoughts and 
put into words our most secret purposes ; where we 
can unfold our doubts, disclose our agonies and bury 
in surrounding silence the sins, the shames, the sor- 
rows, the meannesses of our spirits. 

Even Christ had his Mount of Olives and Geth- 
semane was at its base. Under the shadow of its trees, 
aided by the friendly darkness of the night, he ate the 
meat of which his disciples had no knowledge, and 
came from these hours of solitude to walk the surface 
of the lake and speak its tumbling billows to an in- 
stant calm, to hold in check the rising passions of the 
mob, to stay the progress of disease, send light into 
sightless eyes, wreathe garlands of wisdom for the 
brows of ignorance, and call with potent voice the 
very dead to life. Transfigured once in three and 
thirty years, he often sat in solitude upon the shore 
of the infinite sea, and let its waters break in multiply- 
ing billows across the borders of his being, seized with 



36 SPffilTUAL SANITY 

bolder thru^'h":. *he great purpose ~"' ^//'^ life, and 
armed li::'::-e^i w::n new spiritual :::«..:: :o conquer 
sin and death. The very value of these hours is in 
their secrecy. Without tha*t the purpose of the spirit 
is disturbed. 

Now Vathanael h:^'"^ ^::'- ^;r tree, and beneath its 

refreshing -hade he :.. .'mmunion with himself. 

It was the custom of the Jew to repose under the shade 

of the f.2: tree a- " :3.iv roof, occupying liim- 

self with reading :.:- .^.'--. \a:hanael may have been 
thus employed. He :::^.y ha^'c been praying for the 
coming of the red-:mp:::n of Israel: liis thoughts may 
have been fixed on the Messiah whose advent was to 
bring glory and gladness into tiiis darkened world: 
he m:^.v h^ve b^^n occ^i-^xed with the things of liis own 
life a:::! ic:o;',r:i ~-:e -.::.dc w::h :he creatures of his 
own thought : he may have spoken out the story of 
his distress at some early sin or some later sorrow : he 
may have conver-ed ^::h him-elf a> one talks with an- 
other of the d:\rk :.:::: ^- ::: k:^ br:::g. conscious of liis 
entire sep3.:o:::r_ :r:m :.-.. :k- :-:.o:::'n from men, his 
insulation in space, and so with freslmess and fullxiess 
his tk'T'U ^"k:s VN-ere laid bare. 

^^:--': --_'- ^^^": ^^me a sense of deep di-tress that 
nc^.T __ „_. . --"P-k -- "e^oe":-:i kn. how sor- 

r-?~:\kiv ke mruimed ovco k^- :k.,_. :.."' -:.:::- :uky k:- 
L: : : the weak points in his life: there may have 

been pam that no r::^ ';k' know tke sorrow that op- 
pressed him, the scn-c .:: .liveliness that came over him 



SPIRITUAL INTUITIONS 37 

In view of possible changes that were apparent; his 
fig tree communion puts emphasis upon all that was 
needy in his life and spiritual needs lay deeper than 
all others. Philip was a friend, but when he met him 
there was no knowledge or hint of that inner experi- 
ence through which he had been passing. It was all 
covered from his sight as the billows cover the treas- 
ures of the sea, as the rough stone surface hides the 
flashing crystals of a geode. As soon as Nathanael 
met a man again, the inner Kfe was covered, perhaps 
every thought of it suppressed. 

You remember the solitary hours in the experience 
of the minister whom Hawthorne described in the 
Scarlet Letter, when he left his house on an obscure 
night in May and reached tlie spot where Hester 
Prynne had lived through her first hours of public 
ignominy. The same platform or scaffold, black and 
weather-stained with the storm or sunshine of seven 
long years, and foot-worn, too, with the tread of many 
culprits who had ascended it, remained standing be- 
neath the balcony of the meeting-house. The minister 
went up the steps. If the same multitude which had 
stood as eye-witnesses while Hester Prynne sustained 
her punishment could now have been sinnmoned forth, 
they would have discerned no face above the platform, 
nor hardly the outline of a human shape in the dark 
gray of the midnight. But the town was all asleep. 
There was no peril of discovery — no eye could see 
him, save that ever-wakeful One which had seen him 



38 SPIRITUxVL SANITY 

in his closet wielding the bloody scourge. And there 
he stood alone, afraid, unobserved and anxious, lest 
some eye should see him in the moment of his expia- 
tion, discerning "by the faintness that came over him 
when the light of a ghmmering lantern held in the 
hand of a passerby had faded away without discover- 
ing him, that the last few minutes had been a crisis of 
terrible anxiety." 

Such hours as these, having more or less intensity 
according to the purpose that prompts them, and the 
thoughts that occupy them, hours of concealment, are 
not intended to belong to the world. Sometimes the 
feeling in the soul is so intense that the thought of 
publicity is forgotten, though the secret purpose is 
cherished. 

I have read that one evening, long after Dr. Sam- 
uel Johnson had reached the zenith of his hterary 
fame, he said to his hostess : "Madam, I beg your 
pardon for the abmiptness of my departure in the 
morning, but I was compelled to it by conscience. 
Fifty years ago, madam, on this day I committed a 
breach of filial piety. My father had been in the habit 
of attending Uttoxeter market and opening a stall 
there for the sale of his books. Confined by indisposi- 
tion he desired me that day to go and attend the stall 
in his place. My pride prevented me, and I gave my 
father a refusal. And now, to-day, I have been at 
Uttoxeter ; I went into the market at the time of busi- 
ness, uncovered my head and stood with it bare for an 



SPIRITUAL INTUITIONS 39 

hour on the spot where my father's stall used to stand. 
In contrition I stood there and I hope the penance was 
expiatory." 

Thomas Carlyle says of this event : "The picture of 
Samuel Johnson standing bareheaded in the market 
there is one of the grandest and saddest we can paint. 
Repentance, he proclaimed, as with passionate sobs, 
but only to the ear of heaven, if heaven will give him 
audience ; the earthly ear and heart that should have 
heard it are now closed and unresponsive forever." 

The silent attitude of this man in this pubhc place. 
In which he became absorbed with his own relations to 
past events and persons out of sight, is like that of 
the minister on the platform at night, like Nathanael 
under the fig tree, hke each one of us in such hours of 
abstraction and painful experience. 

When, then, there came to Nathanael the assurance 
that not onl}^ was he observed in his place of retire- 
ment, but that all his secret thoughts had moved out 
from himself into possession of this man to whom 
Philip had brought him ; that the deepest emotion of 
his heart, the tenderest possessions of his being were 
no longer his, that his place of retirement was a place 
of exposure and the shade of the fig tree no cover to 
his person ; when he saw no malicious gleam of tri- 
umph in the eye of him who addressed him, no secret 
chuckle at his knowledge betrayed in the tones of his 
voice, no tyrannous mastership exercise<l over liim 
while his heart lay like an unrolled manuscript before 



40 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

him, whose every line, whose every word, whose every 
dot had been scanned; aware of the supernatural 
power thus disclosed, he caviUed not, nor cared to rea- 
son further, but, with the loyalty of a spirit without 
guile, exclaimed, as Thomas did on the lower plane of 
contact with the flesh, "Thou art the Son of God; 
Thou art the King of Israel !" 

So, when there comes, to us some sudden disclosure 
of the Christ, the knowledge that he is acquainted 
with our fig tree experience, that he has heard our 
moans and cries, our spoken sorrows and our untold 
pains ; that he has seen our weakness, our shrinking, 
our steadfastness of spirit; that when we went alone 
to gird ourselves for trial or for combat, he stood by, 
though we were then unconscious of his presence in 
our complete absorption in our own condition, so that 
the knowledge of ourselves is not locked up in the 
chambers of our own being but shared by him ; when 
we are assured that he was a silent partaker in the 
experience of our hour of solitary struggle for some- 
thing better than we had been or known, there is first 
a shock to the sensibilities, then an outflowing of love 
and confidence as we detect his greatness and under- 
stand the purpose of his revelation to' us. 

Nathanael was informed of the Christly observa- 
tion, not that he might have a fear of an everlasting 
sentinel pacing to and fro through all the secret places 
of his life, but that he might have the repose of a 
spirit whose secrets are safely lodged with infinite 



1 



SPIRITUAL INTUITIONS 41 

love, and whose weakness is sheltered beneath a present 
Almightiness. 

"When thou wast under the fig tree I saw thee/' 
Jesus said to Nathanael, "Thy struggles, thy wishes, 
thy hopes, thy plans, thy desires, thy sins, thy sor- 
rows, thy doubts, thy fears, thy trusts are all known 
to me," and he knew he stood in the light that makes 
stars and suns all needless, and is in itself the executor 
of the divine will as it reveals exact proportions and 
shows inevitable destinies, that he only could thus pene- 
trate the covering of custom and courtesy who was the 
Son of God, the King of Israel. 

Never again could he take his place beneath the fig 
tree for meditation or study without a thought of this 
spiritual inspection ; never again would he go apart 
from the world without a deep sense of the necessity 
of perfect honesty in all his deahngs with himself; 
never could he abandon himself to the wild play of his 
own feelings, as though no one cared for him, no one 
knew him, no one was interested in the issue of his 
meditations, no one could share his loneliness or be 
admitted a partner in his experience, but "Lo, I am 
with thee," would be written for him on every leaf 
that lent its cooling shade, and would be sung for him 
in every movement of his leafy covert. 

Often had this lesson been taught in the Old Testa- 
ment Scriptures with which Nathanael was familiar, 
but doubtless it came to him with a freshness as it be- 
came a reality in his own experience. Possibly some 



42 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

of us have yet to learn it as we come from some hour 
of fancied solitude to meet the Christ whom we have 
not yet fully known. The story of Hagar in the 
wilderness, when "Thou God seest me" became the 
name of Jehovah to her as the Lord met and blessed 
her, was well known. Peniel was f amihar to him as 
the place where Jacob in his solitariness saw the Lord 
face to face. He knew that the Lord met Moses in the 
desert as he led the flock in a retired place away from 
his kindred, solitary in spirit. The history of his 
people had made him familiar with the frequent mani- 
festations of the divine presence in hours of special 
personal distress. 

He had sung the precious truth in the words of the 
psalm, "O Lord, thou hast searched me and known 
me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising ; 
thou under standest my thought afar off. Thou com- 
passest my path and my lying down and art acquaint- 
ed with all my ways. For there is not a word in my 
tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. 
Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine 
hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for 
me ; it is high, I cannot attain unto it. Whither shall 
I go from thy Spirit ? or wliither shall I flee from thy 
presence .^^ If I ascend up into heaven thou art there; 
if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I 
take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the utter- 
most parts of the sea ; even there shall thy hand lead 
me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely 



SPIRITUAL INTUITIONS 43 

the darkness shall cover me ; even the night shall be 
light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from 
thee ; but the night shineth as the day : the darkness 
and the light are both alike to thee." 

And yet he could have an experience of solitariness 
as though there were a sense in which the Lord was 
not with him. But when the Master recalled his his- 
toric consciousness of the divine presence and as- 
sumed to possess it himself, breaking over all the ordi- 
nary barriers that divide men and revealing knowledge 
of his inner being, accompanied by evident love for 
him and supply for his needs, his heart was captured. 

And thus the appreciation afresh on our part of the 
share which the Lord takes in all that tends to sepa- 
rate us from the supports of this world may quicken 
in us the trutlis of the word and lead to a blessed ex- 
perience of Christly friendship and companionship. 

The great truths that meet us in this study are : 

1st. There is a constant divine inspection of the 
obscure. The Bible repeatedly asserts this, and the 
natural world everywhere forcibly illustrates IL 
Every department of natural study is constantly lift- 
ing into greater prominence this lesson. The chemist, 
the botanist, the geologist, each with the microscope 
in hand, declares that the most powerful evidence of 
the presence and workmanship of God is in tlie most 
minute and obscure specimens that can be obtainetl. 
Delicacy of finish is not determined by tlve publicity 
or the speedy exposure, but rather by its obscurity. 



44 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

God can work and wait thousands of years for an 
observer. The occult things of nature discovered by 
man are all worthy of their divine author. "Appar- 
ently trivial changes in atomic arrangements effect 
changes of the most unexpected and starthng order/' 
and proclaim everywhere the divine inspection of the 
obscure. All things celebrate his presence, even 

"The wind, before it woos the harp. 
Is but the wild and tuneless air; 
Yet, as it passes through the chords. 
Changes to music rare." 

It is thus that in the combination and contacts of 
things without life the presence of a divine worker is 
manifest. And if in these material things, how much 
more in the lives of his children ! It is not an empty 
utterance that informs us that the hairs of our head 
are all numbered — that we are of more value than 
many sparrows, though not a sparrow falleth to the 
ground without our Father. There is nothing ob- 
scure. A prayer meeting by a hay stack is proclaimed 
in the majestic movements of that great society that 
seeks to bring the whole world to Christ, and Henry 
Martyn, dying obscurely in a foreign land, becomes a 
beacon light to flash through centuries. The retire- 
ment under the fig tree elicits the divine observation, 
interest, blessing. The very obscurity of our lives 
emphasizes the fact of the divine notice. 

2d. There is no retirement from God's love and 



SPIRITUAL INTUITIONS 45 

sympathy. We may be separated from the human of 
necessity or by choice. The shade may lure us from 
the hght, the silence from the roaring noise, the fig 
tree from the temple, the rural from the urban, but 
nothing can separate us from God. Sorrow, sickness, 
pain, disappointment, the needs of our spirit may 
hurry us away from the sight of men, but under the 
fig tree the Lord bends over us in compassion, and in 
our weakness seeks to lift us in his arms, since "in aU 
our afflictions he is afflicted,'' and the declaration of 
this truth to Nathanael gives its rich treasure to each 
of us. So may we sing — 



*0h, I know the hand that is guiding me 

Through the shadow to the light; 
And I know that all betiding me 

Is meted out aright. 
I know that the thorny path I tread 

Is ruled with a golden line; 
And I know that the darker life's tangled thread 

The brighter the rich design.'' 



Knowledge of these truths ought to furnish basis 
for a larger and sweeter trust to-day. Without him 
the fig tree may become a place of pain and at length 
of suicide ; but with him it becomes tlie most hallowed 
spot on earth. Its voice calls for a rich acknowledg- 
ment of blessing, for a real consecration, for a nobler 
service, for a holier hfe. It ought to lead us to say 
with Whittier : 



46 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

"I care not where the islands lift 

Their fronded palms in air: 
I only know I cannot drift 

Beyond his loving care. 
And so, O Lord, by whom are seen 

Thy children as they be. 
Forgive me if too close I lean 

My human heart on thee." 



^ 



IV 

THE PERSONAL FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST 

**I am with you alway" (all the days).— Matthew 28: 20. 

Few words of our Lord would be more seriously 
missed than these if they should be taken from the 
sacred volume by the demands of scholarship or the 
tooth of time. They have become so familiar to us, 
the tiTith they convey is so inwrought into our experi- 
ence that we are not conscious of its value or of our 
dependence upon it. As we do not pause every morn- 
ing to consider the value of the returning light, but 
cheerfully enter upon the duties of the day under its 
brilHant ministry, so do we almost unconsciously walk 
in the silvery sheen of this blessed truth intent only 
upon that which it enables us to perfonn. 

But when some enthusiastic lecturer or some student 
professor, warm with his theme, analyzes for us the 
beams of light, acquaints us with all the details of its 
formation, its long and rapid journey, its marvellous 
adaptation to our necessities, its abundant provision 
for our wants, we rejoice with a new joy in its pres- 
ence, and even forsake for a time its use that we may 

47 



48 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

celebrate itself. And when we are called by any agency 
to apprehend the specific excellence of this glorious 
Christ-spoken truth, and feel its warmth and realize 
its strength-g-iving quality and see its beauty and 
measure its worth, we are ready to drop every employ- 
ment that we may fitly celebrate, the source of all our 
goodness, the ground of all our strength, the open. 
secret of all our successes. 

The harmony that in our lives has charmed the 
passing stranger, the fragrance that has drawn to us 
the attention and fixed upon us the affection of our 
fellowmen has come from a single and simple cause. 
The tree has not grown its luscious fruit out of itself ; 
the bush has not from its secret resei'^'oir drawn out 
and hung in sight of all its brilliant and beautiful ber- 
ries, but from beyond, from air above and earth be- 
neath, with which its contact has been constant, has 
both beauty and richness been derived. The spirit 
among men that has been strong and grand in pur- 
pose and in act, dignif^dng the race and proving its 
worth, dispensing treasures of learning and nobler 
treasures of virtue has not evolved these from the 
depths of its own being, but has derived them from 
beyond the limits of itself. Excellence would soon be 
withered, virtue would soon fade, beauty would soon 
be gone, if nourished only from the human suppHes. 
But with eye fixed upon the external, we are unmind- 
ful of hidden processes of production ; hungry, we are 
intent upon provision, regardless of its source, until 



FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST. 49 

called by a master voice to a considerate regard for 
that upon which we have found ourselves so dependent. 

To teach us this truth, our headlong pace in hfe 
might be arrested by the sudden withdrawal of that 
which nerves us for every conflict; then, indeed, are 
we awakened in wild alarm to our grievous neglect. 
It is better to be sumLmoned to' a vivid sense of that 
blessed presence, that, while it is the charm of heaven, 
is also the unspeakable treasure of every earthly Hfe, 
for a consciousness of our true relations to our Lord 
will compel us each to cry with the psalmist, "Whom 
have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth 
that I desire beside thee!" 

This was not a wayside utterance of Christ, sug- 
gested by local surroundings and Kmited in its appK- 
cation, but it was so royally set as to flash its radi- 
ance to the remotest bounds of time, and secure atten- 
tion by the hour and place of its utterance. 

I. There was a profound necessity in the condition 
of the early disciples for the announcement of this 
truth on the part of Christ in some emphatic form. 
He had given them a stupendous work to perform in 
face of unspeakable odds. They were a frail minority 
in midst of powerful and determined opponents. Rc^ 
Hgion and government were arrayed against them. 
Their story was mocked, their persons were to be 
maltreated. Contempt was to be visited upon tliem, 
yet they were to go forth and disciple the world. Tlioy 
were to overcome all opposition, and cliange tlie wlvirl- 



50 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

wind of human passion into a sonata of divine praise. 
They were to honeycomb the proud philosophy and the 
boastful religion with its pantheon of gods with the 
words of their Master until they both crumbled away, 
and these new and liAang f onns of thought and devo- 
tion appeared. They were to lift a blood-stained 
cross till monarch and people hailed it as the sign 
of spiritual freedom and glorious dehverance from 
sin. 

Here was transcendent need of some divine help, 
some all-glorious leader. Natural infirmity must needs 
be supplemented by spiritual might, and all the con- 
flicting desires of imperfect men be unified in the rule 
of a dominant leader. This word of Christ became 
thus the prelude of victory. It met the necessity of 
the hour. If defeat came it was but temporary ; if 
blood flowed, it was but for a moment; if Satan tri- 
umphed, it was only to make his overthrow more con- 
spicuous and complete ; if persecution led to prison 
and to death, it was only to emphasize the splendor of 
that conquest which should subdue all opposition and 
shake the universe with its caraival of joy. If Christ 
were really with them, the disciples felt that they were 
equal to every emergency. And so they braved the 
evils of their day, and started Christianity on its sub- 
lime mission. They sang amid the tempest, and quail- 
ed not before hostile kings ; they roamed the land and 
sailed the sea, carrying their message to the ends of 
the earth, for a present Christ sustained their faith, 



FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST 51 

quickened their courage and kept warm their aflFec- 
tions. 

II. The same necessity remains to-day. Disciples 
still need the assurance of this truth for the conflicts 
now in progress. Sin is the same as in the early day ; 
hatred of God and human and demoniac opposition to 
him is unchanged. The foes of the truth are yet in 
battle array, and the rule of this world is still the 
issue in the mighty combat. Personal passions are 
still strong, and wicked spirits in high places vex and 
torment the sons of God. Unbelief and wrong beliefs 
still fling their insolent taunts at Christian faith, and 
old forms of error still hold the allegiance of millions 
of our f ellowmen. The centuries of conflict have not 
displaced the crescent nor raised the cross in triumph 
where Buddha taught and Confucius led to idolatry, 
though doors are open and voices call in every land 
where men have gone astray. Eight hundred and 
thirty-five millions are still Pagan, five hundred mil- 
lions follow Buddha, one hundred and seventy-five 
millions extol Mohammed, while eight millions of Jews 
ignore Messiah and two hundred and seventy millions 
are the slaves of a corrupt Christianity. Tlie battle 
wages all along the line, and Satan struggles for body, 
soul and spirit. Even in this age of thought and in- 
vestigation God himself is denied existence in his own 
world, and tlie spirit in man is reduced to the principle 
of life that brings a shrub to flower and fruit to decay 
and extinction. That "the wages of sin is deatli," that 



52 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

"Jesus died to save lost souls/' is still an unwelcome 
message, and the disciple has no more power in himself 
to-day than when Peter fell and all forsook the suffer- 
ing Master and fled. At the head of the faltering col- 
umns, by the side of every man there is need of the 
glorious leader. And this stimulating word of Christ 
comes to meet our necessities in the struggle with sin, 
in the combat with error, in the attempted conquest 
of the world. "I am with you" brightens the eye and 
stirs the slumbering pulse and quickens the lagging 
steps. 

III. But in what sense did Christ intend us to 
understand his presence.? How are we to beheve that 
he is with us ? 

There is a powerful stimulus in that which stands 
for another and is so vitally connected with him, that 
it may be said to represent him, even to be him. One 
may be present with friends and followers by the 
truths which he has spoken, by the instruments he has 
used, by the institutions he has established, by the 
charms or amulets he has left, by fragments of him- 
self as bone or garment, by the people whom he has 
won to himself. 

Was it in any or all of these senses that Christ 
spoke this word ? 

There is a fragment of Plymouth Rock upon whicl] 
our New England Fathers landed in the face of the 
pulpit at which I am accumtomed to minister ; it stands 
for the principles and suggests the sufferings of our 



FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST 63 

Pilgrim Fathers. Is Christ with us by some symbol 
typical of him and his work and constantly suggestive 
of it, and with us no more tlian the fathers are with 
us by the rock, through memory stirring us to heroic 
endeavor for the right? Would this text be satisfied 
in the presence with us at this hour of the seamless! 
garment which our Saviour wore, for which the sol- 
diers gambled? The Capuchins, an order of Fran- 
ciscan monks, were wont to show to their audiences 
locks of hair torn from th^ head of their martyred 
saints, so quickening enthusiasm and preparing for 
their stirring words of address! Were the martyrs 
there present as Christ would be with us by the ex- 
hibit of some relic? Is he no more with us than 
they? 

This is our central question — vital as our very life, 
our hope of everlasting victory. 

That Christ is with us by his truth let us freely and 
happily admit. The words he spoke vital with his 
own life spring with elastic step along the ages, touch 
the dead into life, the living into power, awake nations 
from the long sleep of centuries to leap from the mo- 
tionless dust to every form of noble action, and justify 
his own declaration, "The words that I speak unto 
you, they are spirit and they arc life." We see the 
transforming energy that is in them, and seek to carry 
them as a living person to every land. They comfort 
the sorrowing, they support tlie weak, they recall the 
erring, they give peace to the trusting, they chariot 



54 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

the dying as the loving embraces of strong arms to the 
world of life and light. 

"Sing them over again to me. 
Wonderful words of life; 
Let me more of their beauty see, 
Wonderful words of life." 

Yet we are not ready toi believe that Christ referred 
to his words when he said, "I am with you alway." 

We know the power of a mother's letter to« recall 
her spirit after she has gone. How single paragraphs 
will ring with her voice ! How single words bring out 
the expression of her face ! Often such a letter is tear- 
stained from frequent use. But the letter is not the 
mother after all. Neither is the gospel letter Christ 
himself. He did not intend us so to understand his 
teaching. 

A little shoe will recall a baby's face and fill again 
a mother's arms as she sits in her chamber oblivious of 
all, holding again her baby, while she really holds 
only a little toe-crumpled shoe. There is marvellous 
power in representative things. The heart of Bruce 
thrown to the enemy fires to transcendent heroism the 
Scottish warriors — for to them their king is then 
among his foes. The idol becomes the God whom, it 
represents, the wafer is declared to be Christ that it 
suggests, and even tutored minds bow before a crucifix 
and yield to the strange fascinating power of a, relic 
of early days or a symbolic representative of them. 
The tragic story of the history of the wood of the true 



FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST 55 

cross shows in its convulsive power over nations the 
might of representative things. But we protest 
against any or all of these as being Christ m the world 
to-day. 

Parties stand for the thought and life of those who 
formed them, bearing more than their names to pos- 
terity ; societies and clubs perpetuate personal quali- 
ties and individual lives. The Christian Church pul- 
sates with the life of Christ and is dead without him. 
As he abides in its members, and so in it, disclosing 
again the peerless qualities of his being, so are they 
and it useful and powerful in the world. There are 
special promises concerning his presence in and with 
his Church, but we cannot believe that he referred to 
his Church when he said, "I am with you alway." 

The Church, bloody, boastful, vengeful, corrupt, 
worldly at times, is not Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ 
of God. 

A son may represent a father, a follower may re- 
semble a leader, a disciple may embody the spirit of 
the teacher, a friend may reflect the life of his boon 
companion, but each is distinct. Individuality of being 
is the law of life. So Christ is not with us simply in 
the person of his dearest and truest disciple and 
friend. He may answer the prayer of Thomas Aqui- 
nas for more of himself, till the devout monk is full 
of the glory of his Redeemer, and yet Christ shall bo 
distinct from him. Pie is with none as he is with the 
Father. His Church is not himself. 



66 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

With all these ehminations, his utterance yet re- 
mains and demands explanations. Do we not find it 
in the simplest possible meaning? 

IV. Jesus Christ is with us as a person distinct 
from truth and symbol, separate from church and 
people as when he dined with Zacchaeus, or slept on 
the waking boat, or walked on the foaming sea, or 
taught on the green slopes of the hills. As he was 
with James and Peter and John, as he was with Mary 
and Martha, as he was with the twelve at the First 
Supper on the memorable evening in the upper room, 
so is he with us to-day. Apart from elements here 
spread, distinct from truth and church and each dis- 
ciple, in his own blessed personality he is here now. 
This is the (declaration of his own hps. A person is 
always better than possession or attributes, and his 
promise declared his personal presence through all the 
days. It is his presence that has brightened the ages 
and cheered the saints in every land. Luther before 
the great tribunal, Bernard in his lonely cell, the 
nameless disciple in the Catacombs, the martyr in the 
arena with the raging lion — all knew a personal pres- 
ence as did the Hebrew worthies in the fiery furnace 
of old. And the tried, troubled, feeble, sorrowing dis- 
ciple of to-day has the same source of comfort as the 
widow of Nain on her sad journey, as Mary and Mar- 
tha when Lazarus lay dead. Into the chamber of sick- 
ness he still comes, unchanged in spirit and in purpose 
of blessing, to brighten the weary hours and give 



FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST 57 

strength to bear the wasting pain, the desolating lone- 
hness. 

The joyful assembly he still joins, to increase its 
pleasure as when he found his way to the wedding 
party at Cana, or sat at feast in the rich man's dwell- 
ing. He still calls to Zacchaeus in the tree and to 
Matthew sitting at the receipt of custom. He beckons 
disciples from every condition in life, and draws near 
to the boys and girls to be their friend and helper. 
He still takes the infants in his arms, and says, "Of 
such is the kingdom of heaven.'' No' struggle with 
temptation escapes his loving attention; no fallen 
Peter fails to receive his look of sorrow or his message 
of forgiveness and hope. He is still wounded by the 
desertion of friends, by the cold indifference of those 
who know him, by the refusal to become his disciple. 
He still lingers with those who question, like Nico- 
demus, and is patient with the obtuse sense of those 
who, hke the woman of Samaria, have long hved in 
sin. He still wants the affection of men ; he still de- 
sires to save them from their sins. Hypocrisy and 
Phariseeism are still hateful to him, and unbehef pre- 
vents his mighty works of power. Steadily as the 
years move on he works toward the end of tliis age 
when Satan shall be overthro\^n and choices be fixed 
and eternal. Not willing that any should perish, but 
that all should come to repentMiice, he multiplies agen- 
cies of spiritual influence, and personally makes them 
effective; uses weak instalments, making tlieiii power- 



58 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

ful by his presence. He seeks in the lonely mountains 
and in the crowded city the soul that has gone astray, 
and unseen, but not unfelt. He stands pleading, 
pleading for the soul for which he shed his precious 
blood. 

V. In this understanding of our Lord's words 
there is 

( 1 ) Perpetual corrective of evil, and 

(2) Perpetual stimulus to good. 

I am sure I would not have done many things that 
have marked my life, had Jesus Christ in the flesh 
been my conscious companion. Words would have 
been unspoken, deeds w^ould have been undone. But if 
Jesus be just as really with me as though in the flesh, 
and I am conscious of that presence, shall I not be 
kept from open sin, from secret fault.? 

How the meanness of my spirit wiU crouch away 
from disclosure! How the stinginess of my soul will 
cloud my life and be quickly exchanged for open Hb- 
erality in blessed gifts to him and for him! Every 
temptation will lose its power, every besetting sin be 
more quickly attacked, every unholy alhance be more 
readily broken in the sense of his personal presence. 
The thoughts themselves will be kept pure, the ten- 
dency to yield to evil suggestions will be held as with 
bit and bridle, and the spirit feel a consciousness of the 
surety of triumph over all that has made it narrow, 
small, ungodlike. 

The mystery of the Lord's ubiquity is lost in the 



FRIENDSHIP OF CHRIST 59 

joy of the personal experience of his holy promise. 
This truth cannot fail also to be a perpetual stimulus 
to good. The reality of his presence will prevent dis- 
couragement. Activity will be more constant and ser- 
vice more successful. The Sunday-school teacher will 
not falter, the mother will not lessen her efforts to 
bring every child to Christian living, the disciple will 
not hesitate to confess his Lord, the sufferer will be- 
come more patient, the bereaved will be more readily 
comforted, and the dying smile at the disclosures to 
the spirit as it wins the victory over decaying nature. 
The disciple who has turned from duty will return 
and bear his cross and serve his master, conscious that 
his Lord is really with him. 

One of the most beautiful legends is connected with 
the old age of Peter at Rome. Persecution had be- 
come severe, dangers were imminent, and the old man 
for the moment forgetful of the dear Lord's presence, 
escaped in the earl}^ dawn from the city and passed 
through the gates into the Appian Way. In a ^^sion 
he saw the Lord approaching, bearing his cross as on 
the way to Rome, and, throwing himself at the feet of 
his master, he cried, "Lord, whither goest thou?" In 
tender and unrcbuking phrase, but witli a look that 
brought again his real presence to the faltering man, 
he replied: "I go to Rome to be crucified instead of 
thee." That presence nerved the soul to any suffer- 
ing, turned Peter back to the persecuting city and 
made his martyrdoin glorious. 



60 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

It is tcrus with fulness of meaning that the Saviour 
says in this hour of tender and affectionate commemo- 
ration, ''I am with you all the days." 

I walk down the Valley of Silence, 

Down the dim voiceless Valley — alone! 

And I hear not the fall of a footstep 
Around me, save God's and my own; 

And the hush of my heart is as holy. 
As hovers where angels have flown. 

Do you ask what I found in the Valley? 

'Tis my trysting place with the Divine; 
And I fell at the feet of the Holy, 

And above me a voice said, "Be Mine!" 
And there arose from the depths of my spirit 

An echo—-* 'My heart shall be thine." 

Do you ask how I hve in the Valley? 

I weep, and I dream, and I pray, 
But my tears are as sweet as the dew drops, 

That fall on the roses in ^lay ; 
And my prayer, like a perfume from censers, 

Ascendeth to God, night and day. 

But far on the deep there are billows 
That never shall break on the beach. 

And I have heard songs in the silence, 

That never shall float into speech; 
And I have had dreams in the Valley, 

Too lofty for language to reach. 

Do you ask me the place of the Valley, 
Ye hearts that are harrowed by care? 

It heth afar between mountains. 
And God and His angels are there; 

And one is the dark Mount of Sorrow, 
And one the bright Mountain of Prayer. 



THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 

**And Cain talked with Abel, his brother; and it came to 
pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, 
his brother, and slew him." — Genesis 4:8. 

"Andrew first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith to him, 
we have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ. 
And he brought him to Jesus."— John 1 :41, 42. 

The brotherhood of man is a fruitful theme of 
modem discourse — men of every shade of beHef and 
unbeHef announce their faith in these words. The 
Agnostic, who often knows so much about what he 
asserts cannot be known, declares his firm belief in tlie 
universal brotherhood of man ; the infidel and skeptic 
who avow their hostility to Christianity as a fonn of 
faith, yet loudly vociferate their loyalty to the brotli- 
erhood of man ; the liberal Christian who (iislikes 
creeds and searches ever for the outermost rim of ac- 
ceptable thought, glibly asserts his confidence in the 
brotherhood of man ; the stoutest adlierent of tlie most 
hide-bound creed equally affirms his devotion to this 

holy fraternity. All arc agreed in advocating tliis 

61 



62 



SPIRITUAL SANITY 



noble dictum. Blended with the most scathing criti- 
cisms of the dearest beliefs of others are eloquent at- 
testations of the beauty and glory of human brother- 
hood. In the common Fatherhood of God, all would 
find the cosmical human relation estabHshed, and have 
each one love and honor his brother, as the highest 
type of true religion, "He that loveth not his brother 
whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath 
not seen," is a favorite text. All this savors of a very 
friendly spirit, and if the history of man had never 
been written might seem a very natural and easy at- 
tainment. 

The beasts and birds gather the crowds about them 
in Central Park, because they are caged from their 
visitors, and from one another. Their snarls and 
cries of jealous rage during the distribution of food 
are not reassuring to him who speaks of the abohtion 
of the savage nature by years of kindly treatment; 
all are thankful for the bolts and bars. Even the 
domestic animals in the barn and in the yard alike 
present an unseemly strife for bits of food, and often 
snatch away that which is the lawful possession of 
another. The sight of caged convicts in jails and 
prisons, men and women in full possession of their 
senses, bitter and vengeful, stirs a feeling of pity for 
them, and gladness that they are secure from the com- 
munity. And the struggle in the open world gives 
abundant evidence of the feehng in the human heart. 
Travelers tell many strange stories, and it sometimes 



THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 63 

seems as though nations were only caged from each 
other by mighty walls or bars of armed men. 

The debate on brotherhood assumes a new aspect 
when conducted on the border lines of great nations, 
or when taken into the mines of Siberia, and proposed 
to Russian officials. Stepniak, of London, and George 
Kennan can contribute some facts to the problem. The 
armies and armaments of the nations are strange com- 
ments on this universal agreement in brotherhood. 

Four million six hundred and twenty-five thousand 
one hundred and forty-two in the regular armies of the 
world — 21,127,027 when on a war footing, costing 
annually $909,628,736, beside 298,309 in the navies 
of the wodd, costing to support $233,582,937, are 
important items in this discussion. 

The problems that are constantly arising out of the 
blended representatives of all nations that make our 
sixty-two millions demand a closer study of the broth- 
erhood question. The fifteen millions of immigrants 
that have reached our shores during the last seventy 
years, the fifteen millions of colored people that have 
grown up within our own borders, the two hundred 
and fifty or three hundred thousand Indians, the 
Chinamen, whose once curious cue and dress is now as 
famihar as our own national garb, combine to increase 
the interest in these flatulent declarations of coninion 
brotherhood. Our attention is forced anew to this 
question: Will the recognition of our connnon descent 
from Adam, and so of our common brotlierhoo<l secure 



64 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

that fraternal feeling and interest which is thus im- 
pUed? What was the relation that existed between 
brother and brother in Adam? If we return to it, will 
it be sufficient? Is the cry of brotherhood deep enough 
to meet the emergency? The great historic facts are 
before us and help to an answer to these questions. 

If it is enough to put in every mind and crowd into 
every heart the realization that every human being is 
a true brother to every other, then the great work of 
life is simplified; but, if after that is accomplished, 
the same indifferent and hostile feehngs remain, we 
must turn our efforts in another direction. 

If we shall succeed in reducing the world again to 
a single family in Adam, so that all shall recognize 
the common interest, there is widespread expectation 
that difficulties that now beset us will all be harmoni- 
ously solved. But, if it should appear on careful 
study that a lack of unity prevailed when this family 
existed, we must find another and more effective bond 
of fellowship. 

The two passages of Scripture which I have 
brought together this morning present to us the first 
exhibit of brotherly relations in the family of Adam, 
and the first exhibit of brotherly relations in the fam- 
ily of Christ. In the one case it is that of estrangement, 
jealousy and murder; in the other it is that of loving 
anxiety, search and spiritual recovery. This is a 
startling, historic disclosure. It cannot be merely 
fortuitous — it is a revelation. 



THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 65 

The family of Adam presents the condition to 
which we are urged to return, because, it is asserted, 
that in the holy bond of brotherhood safety and hap- 
piness will be secured. But here we find a strife as 
bitter and deadly as is found among the representa- 
tives of different races. We can only answer the ques- 
tion — ^what will be our relation to each other when we 
are all gathered into one family again — ^by declaring 
what it was in the first instance. It will be the rela- 
tion of Cain to Abel. They were brothers, in the 
same family, with loving parents and with no heredi- 
tary, ancestral strifes coursing in their blood. The 
attitude of man to man, then, if returned, only to the 
Adamic family will be the attitude of contention and 
enmity. And so we find it the world over. Men have 
been brought together only to swing apart again with 
angry feelings in the heart, and bitter denunciations 
on the lip. Fraternities have been formed that seemed 
to be the germ forces of human redemption from vexa- 
tious conflicts. But they have been shattered on the 
cruel rocks of ambition and greed. Common pursuits 
and similar tastes have been the basis of union which 
has ended in a fratricidal war. The harmony of 
years has at length been broken, and the lilstory 
of combinations and leagues, of guilds and clubs 
Is an age-long comment on the hopeless efforts to 
effectually unite men on the simple ground of men- 
tal or industrial agreement. In no nation is ex- 
ception found. The cultivated and the degraded 



66 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

alike unite in Adam to divide in Cain and 
Abel. 

The natural man is selfish, considers primarily his 
o\m interest. By just so much as we are in Adam, we 
are pivoted on self-interest. All things have a per- 
sonal relation. The dark picture of human life, with 
its startling contrasts, its Rembrandt Hghts and 
shades, its palaces and hovels, its noble faces and de- 
moniac features, its richly-robed people and ragged 
crowds, its saintly sacrifice and de\dl-fish greed, its 
poiiJy persons and shrunken frames, its busy fingers 
and idle hands, its pampered crime and persecuted 
innocence — tells to earth and heaven the story of hu- 
man brotherhood in Adam. The ages show no im- 
provement. Crime is as black, fiendish and heUish to- 
day as ever. Deeds as foul as ever are wrought in the 
sacred name of friendship, and Cain still walks with 
his brother in the field, and there rises up against him, 
and takes his life. 

Philanthropy is blessed in theory, but in practice it 
must receive salt at the fountain whence it springs. 
Even the church as an organization shows painful 
illustrations of the reign of the human passions in the 
dark days of her history, when membership meant 
little more than brotherhood in a human family. The 
terrible antagonisms that have arisen, the fearful out- 
bursts that have kindled the fires of martyrdom, the 
dreadful deeds that have been done in her name, but 
without the spirit of him who is her head, declare the 



<^ 



THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 67 

inutility of any mere human brotherhood to make men 
what they ought to be. If it could have been done we 
should see the ripe fruits of it to-day. 

In the first exhibit of brotherly relations in the 
family of Christ, we find a dehghtful contrast. 

In the uplift of soul that came to Andrew in meet- 
ing and yielding himself to the Lord, there was an in- 
stant regard for his brother's welfare. Great as was 
his own comfort, it was incomplete until he had found 
and communicated it to Simon. The joy in discover- 
ing the Messiah was coupled with the immediate im- 
pulse to share the treasure with his brother. It was 
no preconceived plan on his part ; the wave of heavenly 
love that had swept into his life brought with it the 
heavenly desire for others' good. It was irresistible. 
Absence from the person of Christ, ignorance of his 
being was a loss deeper than all others ; his quickened 
life could bear no delay. He sought and found Simon 
and brought him to Jesus. If there ever had been 
animosity or strife of any kind, it was drowned in the 
flood of new emotions that now occupied liis breast. 
He, too, talked with his brother as he led liini across 
the field, but of the boundless blessing to which he was 
directing his feet. And the affection that was thus 
disclosed was permanent and prophetic, as well as 
illustrative of the true brotherhood into which all men 
must be bound for eternal union. The Chrlstly man 
is unselfish, and considers primarily his brother's in- 
terests. By just so much as wc are in Christ we are 



68 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

pivoted on fraternal interests, and not on our own — » 
our brother's interests are our own. 

If we study these two cases more minutely we shall 
discover the folly of much declamation, and the worth- 
lessness of much work on efforts to bring all classes to 
a common level, and the plain path that leads to' the 
much coveted goal. 

An analysis of the spirit of Cain and his attitude 
toward Abel reveals many Important particulars : 

1st. He had separate business Interests. The divi- 
sion of the labor of the household might and ought to 
have been the ground of closer union, but It grew to be 
the occasion of a wider separation. Abel cared for 
the flocks while Cain tilled the soil. The work of one 
naturally supplemented that of the other and Illus- 
trated the desired harmonious division of labor In mod- 
ern days. But Cain had little or no regard for the 
welfare of the flocks, even looked with jealous eye upon 
their Increase and regarded his brother's prosperity 
as dwarfing his own. They seemed to be rivals in busi- 
ness. Doubtless Cain had his share In all the Increase 
and family rights in the use of what he desired, yet 
he used no portion save that which came from his own 
toils, at least, for his religious off*erIngs. The fra- 
ternal fact did not help the fraternal spirit of mutual 
advancement, either for Increase of property or united 
approach to God. There were evidently no consulta- 
tions as of those who were conducting diff^erent 
branches of the same enterprise, but, a reticence and 



THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 69 

guarded silence lest the plans of one should be known 
to the other. The mere fact of brotherhood did not 
unite their business interests. 

2d. Cain had separate religious interests. His 
offerings were selected according to his own choice 
without regard to Abel's idea, and probably at vari- 
ance with the divine command. He wanted no' depen- 
dence upon the toils of his brother in his approach to 
God. He headed the liberal school of thought and 
scoffed at the literal interpretation of the divine re- 
quirements. He chose to offer what he pleased, re- 
gardless of what Abel might sacrifice. If brotherli- 
ness created oneness, then there would have been kindly 
communion and agreement ; there was the exact oppo- 
site. That was not the result of brotherhood, but in 
spite of it. The family relation does not, and will not 
of itself promote unity in religious thought and life. 

3d. Cain cherished personal animosity at Abel's 
acceptance with God. Instead of recognizing his 
error, and penitently and joyfully turning from it, 
joining his brother in glad and acceptable fonns of 
worshi}), the demon of jealous hate stole into his heart, 
received cordial welcome and took up liis abode there. 
Henceforth Abel was like an enemy; no liarm had 
come from his lip or his life: his gentle spirit liad 
enriched the home and his diligent devotion to duty 
had increased the common treasure, yet the flame of 
wrath shot up in the heart that should liave glowed 
with tender affection, consumed in its fierceness all 



70 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

gracious feelings, and at length drove the hand to 
the murderous act. There is nothing in parentage to 
compel strife like this between offspring, nor is there 
anything that absolutely prevents it. We can imag- 
ine the debate in the field between these men of such 
different spirit. The harsh tones of the one met by 
the gentle expostulation of the other; the condemna- 
tions answered by protestations of ardent affection, 
the frown lighted up by the smile, the savage rage of 
the murderer heightened by the forgiving love of his 
brotherly victim, the divine communication that had 
preceded the interview instead of healing the smarting 
wound in Cain's soul only seems to- have inflamed it 
the more. This whole narrative as presented on the 
page of Scripture tells a most discouraging story to 
him who seeks only a common brotherhood to solve 
life's tangled problems. 

An analysis of the spirit of Andrew and his atti- 
tude towards Simon reveals also many important par- 
ticulars. 

1st. He had common business interests which were 
cemented in his new love for Christ. That which had 
held these two together on the plane of brotherhood 
held them more firmly in the family of Christ. If, 
bound together by business ties, Andrew feared that 
the establishment of a new basis of union would dis- 
turb the old one, he was glad to find that it only 
strengthened it. His natural tie, firmer in his case 
than in that of Cain, but not firm enough for uni- 



THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 71 

versal happiness, showed perhaps a more congenial 
spirit than appeared in the first family, but the desire 
for a deeper and truer union sprung from the new 
impulse, and did not grow out of the old. Together 
these two men had sailed the sea, and cast their nets, 
endured hardships and divided the gains, and still by 
a mightier power their hearts were to be held together 
for nobler work and more superlative rewards. The 
bond that time and storms might have severed was 
made eternally secure in making permanent their busi- 
ness interests. 

2d. Andrew desired and sought to secure common 
rehgious relations and service. 

Whether or not they had hitherto sympathized in 
their adherence to the Jewish church, membership In 
the great Master's family instantly gave birth to a 
longing that in this matter they should be ahke. How- 
ever much they might differ in natural gifts, Andrew 
wanted similarity of spirit and offering as they knelt 
together at the mercy seat. There was no place for 
jealousy in the heart filled with the new affection. He 
was possessed with the masterful desire to communi- 
cate the new truth which he had received. Though he 
was conscious of having been made a nobler and 
greater man, he was not thereby lifted above any, but 
brought under a holy compulsion to bring everyone to 
his higher level. He was eager to make known his new 
discovery and convince his brother first of the pres- 
ence of the true Messiah in the world. Where the 



72 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

natural broitherhood has always failed, this new and 
only true brotherhood triumphed. It sought not its 
own but another's good. Cain and Andrew stand be- 
fore us as the types of brotherhood, Cain weak and 
ineffective, Andrew strong and successful. 

In Jesus Christ the only true bond of brotherhood 
is found. The spirit of Christ in the human life revo- 
lutionizes it and makes possible loving contact and 
association with all others. The extremes of humanity 
are brought together without mutual repulsion, and 
the prophecy which the angels sung on Judean hills 
becomes fact in the experience of the world. 

Here is the only hope of the world. Until the dawn 
of the day of Christ all efforts for the unity of the 
races were futile, and still every plan that omits his 
Mastership is radically powerless. It may have much 
that is commendable ; it may be presented by eloquent 
lips ; it may be pressed upon the attention by men and 
women of noble lives ; it may win popular applause ; 
it may promise well by early successes ; but in the 
strain of ambition and greed it will wreck the hopes 
of its founders as its fragments disappear in the seeth- 
ing whirlpool of angry debate. 

Multitudes whose souls have kindled into flame, as 

with Tennyson they 

*'Dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, 
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be," 

have prayed with earnest longing that in their time 
might come the blessing when 



THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 73 

"The war-drum throbbed no longer, and the battle-flags were 
furled; 
In the parliament of man, the federation of the world; 
There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, 
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law." 



But even youths may be roused to conflict by these 
very souls with the prayers still warm upon their lips, 
as was often done in the stirring hours of our civil 
war. The bondman flying across this Christian land 
to the borders of Canada for the right to own himself, 
with bloodhounds on his track and a brother man in 
hot pursuit, amply show that the brotherhood in Adam 
fails. 

The brotherhood in Christ alone is equal to the 
emergency. 

It accomplishes its sublime results, first, by destroy- 
ing the Cainite spirit. It does not simply lull it to 
sleep for a season to be aroused again by some mas- 
terful passion, but it subdues it and eradicates it from 
the being. It not only groups people in one body with 
common aims and a grand enthusiasm for their ac- 
complishment, but it renews the old nature and makes 
of every man a new creature. Animosities, feuds, the 
treasured wrath of years disappear, and in their place 
the love and compassion of Christ appear. The weak- 
ness of a fellow man is an appeal for help and not an 
invitation to oppress him. Under its influences nations 
rise out of barbarism, lay aside their warlike liabits, 
beat their swords into ploughjs, their spears into prun- 



74 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

ing hooks, settle differences by arbitration and seek 
the welfare and prosperity of all. 

A combination of all the societies that have ever 
been formed would fail to produce such a result. It 
is the legitimate and inevitable result of the true broth- 
erhood in Christ. On the ruins of every other endeavor 
it builds a sublime success. The removal of the spirit 
of envy, pride, haughty dominance because of better 
conditions in life takes away the source of much bit- 
terness and strife. It is the unremoved root of the old 
Cainite evil that has destroyed so many organizations 
that promised much for the welfare of man. In every 
age the wisdom and goodness of man have been taxed 
to secure the common weal. Philosophers have rea- 
soned and men of practical minds have wrought till 
splendid structures, apparently equal to^ every need, 
have arisen, only to prove their incompetence by the 
retention of that evil, which, like a covered spark, at 
length ignites the whole. The communistic societies 
of our land, various in name and widely scattered, all 
contain the dj^namite for their own destruction. The 
orders of antiquity, many of which lay at the basis of 
social and political revolutions, were themselves swept 
away so thoroughly that their names are Hke frag- 
ments of a dream. The power to hold men together is 
found alone in him who exercises the spirit that was in 
Cain, and substitutes that which appeared in Andrew. 

The brotherhood in Christ succeeds, secondly, by 
purifying and glorifying natural affection. 



THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 75 

Notwithstanding the dark shadow that rests upon 
natural brotherhood, there is the element of divinity 
in it. By the touch of Christ alone is that redeemed 
from evil, recovered for its blessed work. The pri- 
mary command of the great Master is, "Go home to 
thy friends." The thrill of love that, like an electric 
current, sweeps with measureless speed around the 
globe, flies along the natural tie and instantly reaches 
a brother's heart. By prayer and speedy act and 
word, the family feels the new love that has come to 
any member. The separation of years is immediately 
ended. The wanderer is sought and forgiven. He 
turns to his early home. The father and the prodigal 
are in each other's arms. By a process of divine 
alchemy the silent, long inoperative forces of the be- 
ing are quickened and furnish sufficient motive for 
action. 

The love and mind of Christ in the home life so 
exalts to free and vigorous action affections chained 
and slumbering in the dungeons of the being tliat they 
assume their rightful control and command to blissful 
endeavor. Every relation sustained by one human 
being to another feels the inspiring touch of the love 
of Christ. All other attempts to harmonize the scat- 
tered millions have been partial, narrow and sectional. 
They have forgotten hidden thousands, and neglected 
many delicate ties. The breadth of the true Christian 
brotherhood declares its origin to be divine. It 
strengthens the bond between husband and wife; it 



76 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

sweetens the affection binding parent and cliild till the 
earthly home savors of heaven ; it welds the hearts of 
kindred till all family burdens and sorrows are kindly 
adjusted to the strength of each; it kindles the flame 
of neighborly regard and beautifies the community ; it 
sets face to face the capitalist and the laborer till with 
joined hands they bless each other and promote each 
other's happiness ; it works its way to all the hidden 
relations of life and creates sympathies and activities 
which relieve the asperities of a world of sin. Resist- 
less tides of emotion swell and sweep over the soul and 
carry away all that separates and embitters. Attempts 
at creedal agreement, at equal distribution of prop- 
erty, at free occupation of land, at any of the sugges- 
tions of the social reformers of the day would leave 
the human heart as it was, to renew its strife and re- 
gather about the old centers the divided estates. Natu- 
ral differences again exalt themselves. In the family 
of Christ, love for each overrides every other con- 
sideration. 

The brotherhood of Christ succeeds, thirdly, by 
seeking the recovery and upKftiug of all. 

The prayer that Jesus put upon the lips of all was 
"Thy Kingdom Come" — not to the rich, not to the 
poor, not to any class, but to all. The expansive affec- 
tion of the Great Father was to enter into every child. 
The crowded tenement house of the densely populated 
city must win his eager thought and care equally with 
the elegant mansion in the open park. For the poor 



THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 77 

struggling for life under heavy burdens and oppres- 
sive conditions, the heart of the true Christian broth- 
erhood beats as for the prosperous man who controls 
vast industries and many millions. It does not compel 
equality of condition In this world, because it does not 
rearrange natural gifts nor determine that which be- 
longs alone to God, but It binds all Into a blessed 
solidarity and fills every soul with the love of Christ. 
"There Is neither Greek nor Jew, drcimiclslon nor un- 
clrcumclsion, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free ; but 
Christ is all, and in all.'' 

When shall the petty plans of men* be lost In the 
sublime plan of God.? When shall the wranghng 
voices of discordant factions be stilled long enough to 
hear the sweet, sonorous voice of the Son of God, call- 
ing us from every quarter of the globe, from every 
realm of thought, from every condition of life, to 
gather at his feet, and in a solemn acceptance of him 
as Master, and his Spirit as the controlhng force, 
blend our lives in that holy brotherhood which shall be 
the glory of earth, as It Is the consummate excellence 
and everlasting blessedness of heaven ! 



VI 



A PUBLIC MAN DESERTED BY SPIRITUAL 
FRIENDS 

"Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day of his death." 
I Samuel 15:35. 

"Deliver me from my friends" is a prayer occa- 
sionally offered, and then evoking a hearty "Amen" 
from some eager sympathizer. But it is always forced 
from the lips by the presence of some unusual circum- 
stances. It is not a natural petition. It startles those 
who hear it, and awakens strange emotions in loving 
hearts. It seems to speak of a disordered spirit, and 
declare that something is wrong in the life of him who 
offers it. It hints darkly of sinful secrets that cannot 
bear the light, of melancholy brooding over wrong 
that cannot be whispered in the friendly ear. When 
the loving arm of a friend, stealing round the neck, 
ruffles and disturbs the being like the sinuous folds of 
a serpent, when the generous proffers of help, which 
seem to invite confidence, drive the soul away like the 
probings of a detective, when the sound of cheerful 
conversation is like the fitful gusts of wind that pre- 

78 



DESERTED BY SPIRITUAL FRIENDS 79 

cede a sweeping storm, when the laughter of a merry 
party is Hke the shriek of a gale through the cords of 
a flying vessel, there is something wrong in the life. 
When there is a growing tendency to silence and 
secrecy, to loneliness and self-absorption, it is an hour 
for the coming of the best physician the world can 
offer. Though created singly and coming only rarely 
in threes and twos, and even then often stealing the 
preference as Jacob did, we are yet bound into the 
common bundle of humanity, and have natural calls 
for contact and association with others which create 
friendships and the tender ties of affection and the 
holy bonds of fraternal and family relation. Even to 
desire to annul this is to show the presence of a for- 
eign element that, like the worm at the tree, will wither 
the leaves and blight the fruit. 

Friendship has sung the sweetest, carved the noblest, 
painted the grandest, and lived the holiest of all the 
forces known to man. Even Jesus steadily lifted liis 
followers from servitude to this exalted relation to 
himself, saying at length, "Henceforth I call you not 
servants, but friends," and declaring to all, "Ye are 
my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you." 
"Love is the fulfilling of the law," it is written — for 
such obedience makes the perfect character and allies 
the soul with God, who is love. 

It was evidently the plan of God in creation that 
along the channels of friendship should flow the rirli- 
est streams of happiness and bounty that tliis world 



80 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

could know, so that under its powerful sway weakness 
becomes strong, error changes into truth, deformity 
develops into beauty, ferocity sinks into gentleness, 
latent powers come into conspicuity and genius glows 
with its transcendent glory. The touch of friendship, 
like the touch of Ithuriel's spear, makes transforma- 
tions startling and bewildering. The coming of a 
friend is often like the dawning of the day which fills 
the air with hght, and sends the music of a thousand 
warblers into the silent spaces in which a soul has been 
isolated and imprisoned. Nothing can surpass in im- 
portance the formation of a new friendship, for it is 
fraught with untold possibihties. 

The fastening of the electric wire along which the 
currents from the heart of God himself ceaselessly 
flow, so that an individual's life may catch the divine 
messages and feel the throbs as they move on is a sub- 
lime act, and the making of a friend is nothing less 
than this. If friends had only to do with this Hfe, all 
this would be emphatically true, but as we remember 
that the spirit is shaped for eternity here, that the 
magnetic forces draw the life into the paths along 
which it shall eternally run, profounder thoughts 
come to us, deeper emotions control us and more pow- 
erful considerations affect our choices. 

The value of a spiritual friend is incalculable. If 
there be one who keeps his spirit in sympathy with the 
divine, who is not drawn aside by the polar forces that 
deflect the needles in the compass by which we sail, who 



DESERTED BY SPIRITUAL FRIENDS 81 

is not swept from his course by the rush of mighty 
currents, whose calm and steady soul has power to 
meet all opposition and toss aside the crashing blows 
from Hf e's wild sea as granite cliffs break into spray, 
for the sun to rainbow the giant waves of ocean, let 
him be our choicest friend. We are ever in need of 
spiritual help. Childhood feels the dangers that 
threaten the living; poison ivy is on the walls round 
which the children play ; the eagle and hawk swoop 
down where the cradle rocks in the shadow of the pine, 
and deep pools lie close by the stones on which all pass 
from childhood tO' years of conviction and action. 

There is weakness in every hfe and from one- 
quarter, at least, there must come spiritual help and 
support ; the tendency to fall must be met by the brac- 
ing arm of a friend. 'Tis not the simple who thus 
fall, when unguarded and unattended, but thou, oh 
man of noble build, boasting of thy strength, thou 
art the bubble in the breeze ! and ere thy words that 
mock the faintness of another have fallen from thy 
lips, thou art in the dust, overwhelmed, dismayed. No 
man is strong on every side! A spiritual friend \vith 
whom the great problems of the soul may be constantly 
debated, and from whose wliolcsome words of faithful 
life a daily tonic may be drawn, is our constant ncHxl. 
The Son of Man is with us as lie proniise<l, the guar- 
dian angels keep the camp about our dwellings luul 
sentinel our paths, but still we need the liuinan friend 
who can express in living language the words we lavd 



82 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

to hear and give in earthly terms the strong supports 
we need to feel ; he cannot be ignored but with peril to 
the soul while still in fleshly garb. 

This is true of all in every rank in life; those who 
live in obscurity and have to battle most with the 
enemies in their own bosoms, whose path is seldom 
crossed by the wily human tempter, who do not even 
read books or papers to lead them astray, need the 
hours of precious converse with one whose constant 
companion is the Lord of glory, that their inner 
chambers may be kept in order for the Holy Guest, 
their brooidings cleared from the mist that rises from 
the low places of their being, their despondency check- 
ed by thoughts of future usefulness, the owls and bats 
that live in lonesome souls chased out by the sound of 
human conversation. Those who live with books and 
bore and delve amid the treasures of literature, must 
have some one who will ever speak to them of the cer- 
tainties of the spiritual world, or even its eternal veri- 
ties become like the creatures of the brain and lose 
their hold on conscience and on Hf e. Those who spend 
their days in the busy marts of trade, buying and sell- 
ing, exercising all their powers shrewdly, meeting the 
sharp devices of unscrupulous men, the inflexible will 
of the monopolist, the unsatisfied greed of the money- 
hunter, the bold eff^rontery of the determined competi- 
tor need a friend of spiritual character, that they may 
often think of the treasures that are fadeless, of values 
that do not change, of merchandise above the price of 



DESERTED BY SPIRITUAL FRIENDS 83 

silver and of those important business transactions 
that do not have a commercial character. 

The votary of pleasure whirling in the dance, seek- 
ing sweets like humming birds from every flower, 
tossed on the changing customs of society, off*ending 
often the native instincts of modesty in dress, turning 
night into day, and accepting entertainment that 
savors of the polluted days of decayed nationalities 
needs the friend who needs no mimic performance on 
the stage to quicken sympathy or stir indignation or 
furnish pleasure, but for whom the seething world of 
living, suffering mortals supplies the tragedy, the 
comedy, the farce more thrilling than the histrionic 
genius can portray, and who by consciousness of 
spiritual truths rises superior to the empty vanities, 
the sensational silliness, and the hollow heartedness of 
the whirligigs of fashion. 

But especially is it true that those who spend their 
days in public life, and are the representatives and 
servants of the people need spiritual friends to coun- 
teract the steady influences that tend to make tliem 
worldly minded and smother the flame of Immbks 
homely virtues on tlie altar of their souls. Publicity 
is a large price to pay for civic and national honors. 
Few realize the immense cost when struggHng eagerly 
for position. When the eye of the world is constantly 
upon a man, then desires struggle for gratification, 
weaknesses are cloaked or ignored, falseness sccnus 
essential, retention of the good will of all bcroincs tJie 



84 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

constant efFort, and convictions that stand in the way 
of progress become troublesome, and self-interest 
urges their removal out of the way. He who lives by 
faith and close to God, who snaps the hollow maxim 
of the world and substitutes the law of right, who 
fears no man and wants no collusion with sin, and 
brings from his hours of prayer the serene wisdom of 
the heavenly world is the absolute essential as a friend 
to the public man of affairs. His withdrawal is not 
only a personal injury, but a public calamity, and the 
spectacle of a public man deserted of spiritual friends, 
of the withdrawal of the highest spiritual influences 
from him who needs them most is one to move the na- 
tions to distress, the very heavens to sympathetic sad- 
ness. 

Such an event occurred in Jewish history and is 
chronicled in the words of the text and stands as a 
blasted oak on the mountain side, a conspicuous warn- 
ing for all time. Saul was a mighty monarch ; he tow- 
ered above his kindred and his men of war; victory 
perched on his banners and his name was great among 
earthly rulers ; he was a monarch of a people greatly 
blessed and favored with the friendship of Samuel, 
one of God's noblest saints, who from his very infancy 
was called to minister in spiritual things and gave him 
the friendship of his heart and interpreted to him the 
will of God. But in the arrogance of his hour of vic- 
tory, in the indulgence of his pride in conquest, for 
the promotion of his own glory iq the sight of watch- 



DESERTED BY SPIRITUAL FRIENDS 85 

ing and shouting multitudes, Saul substituted his own 
wish for the plain word of God, and so far sunk the 
divine authority beneath his own individual choice, 
and the spiritual counsellor's advice beneath his own 
selfish pleasure, that with the word of solemn warning 
and the assurance of the loss of his kingdom, with sor- 
row in his own heart, Samuel withdrew and came no 
more to see Saul until the day of his death. The light 
that he had refused to follow was put out, the voice 
that he had declined to hear was silenced, the person 
that had represented high and holy refreshment and 
influence was removed, because he ignored its sacred 
help ; the spiritual friend whom he declined to follow 
was lost to him and never seen again till in his deep 
degradation, in the utter terror of his soul, in the pres- 
ence of a witch, while his flesh crept with horror and 
his hair stood on end, the saintly image of his friend, 
the impersonation of all that was good in his life, 
called from the world of spirits by the wretched man, 
rose before him paralyzed and speechless. 

Who shall say that this rapid degeneration of char- 
acter was not hastened by the absence of that con- 
serving force which is found in a spiritual friend. 
There was every promise of the highest good from tlie 
administration of this public man ; lie was wonderfully 
attractive. Even David "loved him greatly," though 
he sought his life; every student of his character 
pauses to pay his tribute of admiration. "The divp 
discords of his spirit are not incapable of being sub- 



86 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

dued into harmonies, as sweet bells jangled or out of 
tune which for an instant, though, alas ! but for an 
instant, recover their sweetness, and most noticeable of 
all, the love which he could feel, he could also inspire. 
If, then, there was a shipwreck here, they were not 
paltry wares, but treasures of great price, which went 
down into the deep," writes Trench. "Saul's char- 
acter is marked by much that is considered to' be of the 
highest moral excellence — generosity, magnanimity, 
calmness, energy and decision. No one could be se- 
lected more suitable in talents or conduct for main- 
taining political power at home than the reserved, 
mysterious monarch whom God gave to his people; 
none more suitable for striking terror into' the sur- 
rounding nations than a commander gifted with his 
coolness and promptitude in action.'' This is the ver- 
dict of John Henry Newman. 

"We can hardly conceive a more promising com- 
mencement to a reign, or one more calculated to gather 
power and work deliverance for Israel. Saul's is just 
the character of many a young man, full of high and 
noble feeling, modest and distrustful of self, coming 
from a religious home or the influence of religious im- 
pressions, and placed in a post of responsibility, of 
activity. All is promise ; we look for high distinction 
of the best kind, and for bright and blessed deeds for 
God and for good," writes Dean Alford. 

There must have been a terrible change when all 
good men shrank from him with abhorrence, and even 



DESERTED BY SPIRITUAL FRIENDS 87 

Samuel could commune with him no more ; when those 
who have studied his career and written such glowing 
words of praise have been compelled to chronicle the 
sad story of his deep disgrace, and utter their burning 
words of condemnation. Hear how praise turns to 
blame. "All the finer qualities of Saul display them- 
selves at the outset of his career ; they gradually fade 
and fail from him, pride meanwhile, and caprice and 
jealousy and envy and open contempt and defiance of 
God coming in their room, until at last of all the high 
qualities which he once owned only the courage — last 
gift to forsake a man, often abiding when every other 
has departed — until this only remains." (Trench.) 

"By wilful resistance to God's will, he opened the 
door to those evil passions which till then, at tlie ut- 
most, only served to make his character unamiable 
without stamping it with guilt. Derangement was 
the consequence of disobedience. The wilfulness which 
first resisted God next prayed upon itself as a natural 
principle of disorder ; his moods and changes, his com- 
punctions and relapses, what were they but the con- 
vulsions of the spirit when the governing power was 
lost." (Newman.) 

"During the first two years of Saul's reign the man 
of grace in him had been waning, the man of Tiatiii*e 
had been waxing stronger. The tendoncy of the m.ui 
was to emancipate himself from Goifs law and make 
himself supreme, to follow his own bent and natural 
impulse, to the setting aside of God's jmsitive com- 



88 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

mands. Saul desired to be his own master, and he was 
left to himself by God." (Alford.) 

Samuel did not withdraw because he wished to, but 
because he was compelled to. The repellant pole in 
Saul's nature was made so active that it forced from 
him those spiritual counsels that only could have saved 
him, and the spiritual friends through whose lips they 
were communicated. His call for them to remain, for 
them to return, was as hollow as his apparent sorrow, 
which went no deeper than regret at the loss of his 
kingdom, and did not touch the deeper misery of his 
abandonment of God. Deserted of Samuel he swept 
like a hurrying canoe toward the brink of the great 
cataract and plunged over the shining edge into the 
seething, boiling caldron, his person lost in the strug- 
gling clouds of spray, his voice drowned in the mad- 
dening roar as of a million demons laughing at his 
fall. 

Had he cultivated the spirit that led him to desire 
the sweet music of David's harp when evil musings 
disturbed him, had he kept as heart companions those 
who loved to tell the story of God's right hand and 
holy arm in delivering his people, had he kept as spiri- 
tual friend the great seer whose fellowship with God 
was constant, and through whose life there streamed a 
light that fell on conscience and the path of right, and 
whose converse was ever a tonic to faltering spiritual 
energies, this public m_an might have finished his 
career in a blaze of fadeless glory. His feet would 



H 



k 



DESERTED BY SPIRITUAL FRIENDS 89 

have been kept In the ascending path, his heart would 
have been kept in loyalty to the Divine Ruler, his 
spirit would have been freed from troublous tempters, 
and the soft hght of the Shechlnah Illumined his later 
hours In place of the dark shadow that fell from 
Endor's witch. That Samuel was faithful in his 
councils while they were permitted and when they were 
Ignored no one can doubt. He ceased to come, only 
when his coming brought but increase of condemna- 
tion. 

This sad story does not stand as a solitary instance 
of the spiritual desertion of a pubhc man. Samuel 
has had his followers in court preachers, the lustre of 
whose names shall ever shine in the brilliance of 
heaven. The words of Ambrose to the Emperor Theo^- 
dosius, of Bossuet to Louis XIV, of John Knox to the 
Scottish Queen declare the faithfulness and value of 
the spiritual friend. But Saul has also had liis fol- 
lowers. Kings and princes have been warned only to 
silence in flames the lips that gave them counsel. No- 
bles and leaders of the people have refused their 
friends who came with tender messages from heaven 
to hear the ruder voices of this world. Like Lorenzo 
the Magnificent, they have compelled the retirement of 
men as true as Savonarola was to him. His experi- 
ence is a type of all. "Oppressed by the weight of 
his crimes, he needed some assurance of divine forgive^ 
ness from trustier lips than tliose of obsecjuious cour- 
tiers, and summoned the unyielding prior to shrive liis 



90 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

soul. Savonarola reluctantly came, and, after hear- 
ing the agitated confession of the dying prince, of- 
fered absolution upon three conditions. Lorenzo asked 
in what they consisted. "First, you must repent and 
feel true faith in God's mercy." Lorenzo assented. 
"Secondly, you must give up your ill-gotten wealth.'' 
This, too, Lorenzo promised, after some hesitation; 
but upon hearing the third clause, "you must restore 
the liberties of Florence," Lorenzo turned his face to 
the wall, and made noi reply. Savonarola waited a 
few moments and then went away. And shortly after 
his patient died unabsolved. The unflinching faith- 
fulness of this servant of God to that which was 
right, his refusal to change or soften the conditions 
of a true life even for a monarch shows the priceless 
value of the spiritual friend to him for whose favor 
the multitudes would even voice the words of the temp- 
ter in the garden of Eden, "Thou shalt not surely 
die." Great statesmen in the crucial hours of their 
career have been saved from yielding to the clamors of 
worldly friends, the threats of desperate crowds and 
greedy politicians, the resounding voice of their own 
ambition by the quiet converse of those who have 
steadily held them to the simple question of duty to 
God and their own eternal interests. When the voice 
of prayer is heard in the home and study of the man 
of aff*airs, when the prophet Samuel is seen to come 
and go from his abode, there is one whom all may 
trust, with whom they may not always agree, but in 



: DESERTED BY SPIRITUAL FRIENDS 91 

the integrity of whose purpose, in the honesty of 
whose utterances, in the firmness of whose convictions 
and in the value of whose pubhc discussions all may 
take delight. 

But if Samuel has departed, and the wild brood 
from the four quarters of political despair have taken 
his place, and the time-server and the destroyer of his 
f ellowman, and the garrulous sophist, and the strange 
woman are the friends of the public man — when self- 
advancement has crowded out obedience to God, and 
determination to do right simply because it is right, is 
gasping and dying in the stifled atmosphere of the 
soul, then woe to the people who have entrusted aught 
to such a man, the people over whom by right of 
heredity he may reign. It is not enough that one be 
colossal in body, head and shoulders above all in Israel, 
as was Saul ; it is not enough that he have the genius 
for conquest and a wonderful potency in the com- 
mand of men such as Saul disclosed ; it is not enough 
that he win victories and bring the splendid trophies 
to adorn his triumphal car and swell the glories of his 
triumphal procession, as did Saul; it is not enougli 
that he have ability to rule, interpret law and apply it 
to his government, as Saul did; it is not enough that 
his constituency be large and his popularity phenomo- 
nal, his gifts abundant and his followers dcvoteil — he 
must have Samuel for his counsellor, a spiritual friend 
for his director, or his decisions will be faulty, his 
thoughts grow eratic, his influence increase ihc jH)wer 



92 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

of godless men, his own life shrivel till in its diminutive 
worthlessness God can find no place for it in the king- 
dom of the good. 

Never in the history of the world was there such 
need of the warning of the text as now. Infidelity is 
defiant and the enemies of a spiritual faith mock the 
sons of God. But the great declarations of God's 
word are in process of accomplishment; mighty 
changes are apparent over all the earth; colossal plans 
seem maturing. He is a mere tyro in observation and 
in thought who does not perceive a growing consoHda- 
tion, a developing crystalKne beauty and order 
throughout the world. Spiritual forces are irresisti- 
ble — they have pushed over in a day the ancient bar- 
riers that guarded Japan and Corea, and have spht 
and gapped the walls that surround China. They 
have opened broad paths into Africa, and are stirring 
the nations of Europe, and true Christianity is the 
essential in all wise and permanently successful dip- 
lomacy. Our own land shows such ferment as pre- 
cedes great advance in spiritual conditions of Kving. 
The interblending of nationahties and the consequent 
fresh solution of problems in sociology, with the un- 
seen hand of the risen and reigning Lord guiding the 
dormant forces to their final triumph, make demands 
for public men whose hearts are right in the sight of 
God. Let us forsake all others ; let us turn to those 
whom God has not rejected, from whom the Samuels 
have not withdrawn, but whose faces are towards the 



DESERTED BY SPIRITUAL FRIENDS 93 

coming glory and whose brows are radiant with the 
rising splendor, whose lips declare the Christian faith, 
and whose counsellors are men of spiritual might with 
the law of God written in their lives. 



VII 



THE PRESENT PROFIT OF GODLINESS 

"Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the 
life that now is, and of that v^hich is to come." — I Timothy 4;8. 

We have sometimes looked far away toi the future 
world for the positive results of the proper use of the 
things of this world and stimulated our souls with the 
Christly assurance that heavenly and eternal friend- 
ships might be made out of the mammom which we 
now possess. This evidence of future friendships and 
blessedness is very gratifying to' us when we are im- 
pressed with the fact that life is short and we are near 
its border lines, when we are conscious that our days 
are numbered and we shall soon leave the associations 
of this world, when we contemplate the loss of all 
earthly acquisitions and the solemn certainty of a 
solitary passage out of this world into- the next. All 
well-stored treasures give a sense of satisfaction in 
the thought of the enjoyment they will give when the 
need for their use has come. Anticipations of meeting 
friends thrill the soul with dehght and the consumma- 
tion of such anticipation, even in this world, gives the 
keynote to that larger and more blissful dehght which 

shall be ours in heaven. 

94 



PRESENT PROFIT OF GODLINESS 95 

There is a tendency in view of the declared glories 
of heaven and the exaltation of the believer to carry 
the thought over the affairs of this Uf e into the next, 
whenever we wish to obtain refreshment from the 
blessedness of Christianity. It becomes easy to close 
the eyes and summon the Scripture pictures into view 
and see rising before the mind the golden streets, 
stretching away beyond the gates of pearl to the many 
mansions tenanted with the happy, waiting throngs, 
among which move our kindred and friends, while 
glorious harmonies fill the air from worshipping hosts, 
and the tender light from the throne illumines all and 
reveals treasures exhaustless, the portion and the joy 
of all, who, freed from sin, have reached their heaven- 
ly home, and at length the reverie closes with a sense 
of pain that we are still in this world and must take up 
its weary burden again. 

In our prayers we ask for the glories of heaven at 
last, with grace sufficient to bear the sorrows and 
losses on the way thither, and unless there is special 
watch, we really indulge the thought that the supremo 
end of godliness is the attainment of heaven, and tliat 
the main joy of a Christian is his anticipation of wliat 
shall be his portion by and bye. 

The staple talk of some believers about the cross, 
and the burden, and the fight, and the tliorn, and tlie 
struggle, and the slipping and falling, and the tears 
and groans, the duties and claims, the self-denials and 
sacrifices, seem to suggest that in this life the Chris- 



96 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

tian has a hard time of it, but will have enough glory 
to make up for all such agony as soon as the borders 
of this world are passed. The use of many hymns 
appropriate to certain seasons at all times and in all 
places, the solemn- vis aged disciple in the place of inno- 
cent mirthfulness, with the far-away look in the eye, 
the frequent quotation of Scripture which has a blessed 
meaning when rightly appHed, but which has a defi- 
nite and local and not universal application, all fur- 
nish the foes of Christ with the weapons with which 
they resist the ingress of his helpful and inspiring 
truths. For this life stretches on through many hope- 
ful years before many ; they are rightly expectant of 
various experiences before the change of world comes, 
and the accumulations and blessings of the present 
have an attraction as well as the glories of the future. 
In a very practical world present relations have an 
important claim upon thought and that religious sys- 
tem that hoards everything for the future is not 
adapted to the human race, that rehgious devotee who, 
to gain what lies outside this world, becomes oblivious 
to its charms and wasteful of its opportunities, and 
blind to its beauties, deaf to^ its harmonies and der- 
grades himself to the condition of beggary and dis- 
ease to obtain a heavenly Inheritance shows either that 
he Is a fanatic or his religious system Is not fit for 
man. So Christ came eating and drinking, mlnghng 
with men, far from asceticism In his life ; relieving the 
disasters of the present, while he also pointed to the 



PRESENT PROFIT OF GODLINESS 97 

future; adding to the delights of this hfe, while he 
multiplied those of the life to come ; comforting the 
sorrowing of this world, while giving assurance that 
all tears should be wiped away in the next ; calling to a 
rich, full and joyous experience here as the prepara- 
tion for an absolute felicity hereafter ; declaring that 
even the sorrows and pains, the necessary accompani- 
ment of a world of sin, should be made to minister to 
an enlarged ability for enjoyment and service. 

The anticipation of the future, therefore, should 
not so fill the orbit of a Christian's thought as to ex- 
clude the present. Paul had subhme expectations of 
things to come, but he wrote to Timothy that godli- 
ness was "profitable unto all things, having promise 
of the life that now is and of that which is to come." 

With firm assurance of the heavenly gain, let us 
think of the present profit of godliness. 

1. It relieves the friction of life and so adds to its 
pleasure. 

When a machine works according to the design in 
its manufacture, every screw firm in its place, every 
wheel moving with appropriate motion, every connect- 
ing rod accomplishing its end, a complicated net work 
of wheels properly controlled and in perfect order 
whirling with successful results, there is delight in 
watching such a piece of human mechanism. We In- 
stinctively feel if it could speak it would decl.'ire lis 
own pleasure in its unhindered movements. But when 
8omc screw is loosened and a jar is felt some little 



98 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

wheel slips from its place or fails to record its revolu- 
tions at the proper place in controlling other motions, 
there is a lack of pleasure, a positive pain. The ma- 
chine declares it in an unsteady rattle, in a failure to 
produce the designed results. The work that corrects 
the evil and sends each part in proper connection to 
carry on the whole in harmony and with power is a 
blessing beyond calculation. 

Now, every man is made to be godly. Godliness is 
his proper condition. It is a fact, as Socrates says in 
the Memorabilia, that man is naturally and differen- 
tially a religious animal and is not thoroughly or nor- 
mally himself except when he is so. All men turn in- 
stinctly to God, and when in action according to their 
evident design are moving in a production of godli- 
ness. The disturbance which we call sin threw the 
whole man out of harmony, and all the manifold dis- 
orders have naturally resulted. That work which sets 
every faculty to play its proper part restores the 
healthful movement, reproduces the joy and secures 
the desirable results again. This is the design of 
Christianity ; godliness or the proper use of all that 
Is in man, on the very lowest plane of reasoning 
or thinking, adds to the delights of every hour of in- 
telligent life because it brings man into the condition 
in which he was designed to live and move. It is be- 
cause of this that wherever godly character is devel- 
oped there is progress in all material things. The 
nation that rises in godliness multiplies all her means 



PRESENT PROFIT OF GODLINESS 99 

of becoming mighty and populous ; her harvests are 
larger, her imports are greater, her progress is quick- 
ened, invention is stimulated and all forms of hfe in- 
stantly declare the enlargment of the capacity of pro- 
duction. The mind was made with a positive relation 
to God to receive his directions and follow out his 
thoughts. The whole being bears this same relation 
to a divine guidance and dependence. If some other 
guide is sought, some other dependence recognized, or 
a self -direction followed, there is such a failure in the 
use of faculties that only weakness and disorder could 
follow. 

The misery of man in a state of sin is the profound- 
est comment on the existence of God and the human 
relation to him. As soon as thought, will and affection 
yield to the divine control there is an instant elevation 
of being, a new and the proper movement of life be- 
gins, and when all the adjustments are made, and the 
individual is acting as he was made to act, the hfe is 
filled with delight, the mind finds evidences of Go<l and 
his great goodness in everything, its ovn\ thouglits 
become like his, the heart grows warm with holy affec- 
tion and the activities blossom and fruit in all the 
products of goodness. There is an understanding of 
what was hidden, there is a choice of what was refused, 
there is a quiet where once was confusion, thore is an 
acquiescence where once was debate and refusal, iuid 
the great change marks at once the appro]>nateness 
of the new course to Ihe life and being of man. We 



100 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

might expect all this development to come when this 
world was in the past, but the first sphere of man's 
designed life was here and the faithful and orderly 
procedure according to the plan of God would make 
this life in its range as happy and blessed as the next. 
It was the teaching of Christ, who came ho restore the 
lost paradise, that the Kingdom of Heaven is within 
us. The lion and the wolf are to be banished from the 
human enclosure, and the nobler, the divine elements 
of character are to be developed. And the advent of 
true Christianity in any soul is the rearrangement of 
all disordered activities and redirection of all faculties 
in the way and toward the end of the original design. 
"Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous 
man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord." 
It is impossible, therefore, but that godliness should 
be profitable for this life in the orderly movements and 
proper application of every faculty of our compK- 
cated being. The faith faculty, the love faculty, the 
service faculty, all in operation bring into the being 
such vast amounts of treasure that its growth, its joy, 
its blessedness are constantly enhanced. It is disloyalty 
to the goodness of God to- suppose that obedience to 
him is to shackle the powers of soul, belittle the gran- 
deur of man, lessen the amount of his delights and 
subject him to a painful imprisonment for life. It is 
a shame to think that man's natural faculties produce 
all the misery and corruption of the world, all the 
wretchedness that the great city presents ; if redeemed 



PRESENT PROFIT OF GODLINESS 101 

man can perpetuate the glories of the pure and blessed 
heaven in his choices and his affectionate service, then, 
when moving in harmony with God's requirements, he 
can do the same thing here. This world will be glori- 
ous beyond expression, when godliness becomes the 
portion of all, and the individual who^ is to remain in 
this world the longest needs the most of godhkeness 
for his joy and the illumination of those about him. 
When God takes the place of the devil in guiding a 
soul, when thought is anchored in goodness instead of 
in evil, when the hf e swings obedient to- this anchorage 
and finds itself where light and blessings of every 
character are its constant portion, the experience of 
the life must be one of added pleasure. "See," saith 
the Lord of Hosts, "I have set before thee this day Ufe 
and good, and death and evil. I call heaven and earth 
to record this day against you, that I have set before 
you Hfe and death, blessing and cursing; therefore, 
choose life that both thou and thy seed may live." 

With the emphasis of an oath, the Almighty de- 
clares the connection between godliness and profit. 
"The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree; he 
shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those tliat be 
planted in the house of the Lord sliall flourish in the 
courts of our God ; they sliall still bring forth fruit in 
old age; they shall be fat and flourishing, to show- 
that the Lord is upright." 

2. The present profit of godliness is seen in the 
removal of anxieties concerning the world to come. 



102 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

It is a fact beyond question that every indi^'idual 
has more or less question about liis probable future 
condition. All discussions of the future have a kind of 
personal element in them. Thought of heaven as a 
place or state, of its work and its worship, it^ rest and 
its rewards, its nearness or its remoteness, have all an 
undercurrent question of our nidividual relation to it 
all. The presence of death m the household, of ap- 
palling calamity in the community, quickens and deep- 
ens the thought. The conscious weakness and frailty 
of the body for any reason awakens the thought; pub- 
He discussion on the problems of the hereafter creates 
a strange tremor in the soul at times. The pungent 
and powerful preacliing of the gospel, the cahn and 
reverent reading of the Scriptures, the thrilling ap- 
peal of some awakened friend, the prayers of the good 
as they fall upon our ears, all keep the question of our 
individual relation to the future world in our mind. 
If it is absent from our thouo^hts for anv lenoH:h of 
time its sudden return alanns us. The night wit- 
nesses our fevered tossino-s. when we reahze that soon 
we shall be dead, as our poor human speech calls it; 
children are not free from tliis f eehng, it accompanies 
us through life. 

If we are in the indulgence of sin, are not fo^llowers 
of Jesus Christ, have not adopted firmly and posi- 
tively religious opinions, there is a diiference in the 
effect of this question upon us; some are profoundly 
moved, others deeply alarmed, others yet only imagine 



PRESENT PROFIT OF GODLINESS 103 

a great haze, with a sense of being lost in a grand 
mystery. I should be sorry to feel that any man could 
think without any emotion upon the hour of his de- 
parture and the possibilities of his hereafter. It 
ought to be considered one of the most alarming dan- 
ger signals. 

When the Scriptures speak to us of the overthrow 
of the wicked, the apparent permanence of sin, of the 
end when Christ shall have delivered up the kingdom 
to God, when he shall put down all rule and all author- 
ity and power, even death itself being destroyed, and 
the Son also himself shall be subject unto him that 
God may be all in all, the anxiety of the soul is deep 
and often distressing. When Christ speaks of the 
lost, declaring that he came to seek and save such, 
calling upon all to find safety and salvation in him, 
the question is awakened, "Am I tlien among the saved, 
whatever that may mean?" Amid the troubles of this 
life the thought arises, will they continue forever? or 
will they be buried in the grave? Througli long yeai*s 
these questions find no happy answer in the experi- 
ence of multitudes. Now godliness comes with the 
blessing of the present and takes all this anxiety away. 
The godly man has his thoughts and his (|uestions of 
the future, but they are among his most delightful 
musings. A godly chafactc^r shall surely ha\c' blessed- 
ness. 1'he spirit that is in blessed association with the 
divine here cainiot come to liarm hereaftiT. The 
fciweet, clean, trustful soul that cannot explain the myn- 



104 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

teries, but lives daily obedient to God in close disciple- 
ship to Jesus Christ, has the positive assurance that 
such Hfe shall continue, broadening and enriching. 
There is no distress about punishment, or the judg- 
ment seat. He reads God's own message, "Know that 
the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for him- 
self." He knows that his loyalty to Christ, his in- 
creasing love for the good, his happy toils for the 
Redeemer's kingdom cannot be changed, and so with 
blessed expectance he enjoys this world till the larger 
joys of the next are opened. If any think that this is 
a hght blessing let them compare the brilKant antici- 
pations of the godly with the gloomy doubts and 
dreads of the worldling, let them contrast the two 
periods in the same life. When all this anxiety is re- 
moved from this life there is a wide field opened for 
other joys. The sting is taken from many an hour of 
pleasure, and the dark drapery removed from many 
a chamber of delight. Hours of distressing reverie 
become seasons of inspiring and stimulating thought, 
and the vigor and buoyancy of hearty, strong, physi- 
cal Hfe is given to the work and the pleasure of days 
as they pass. There is no sigh at the end of a joyous 
day in the thought that soon the last day will come, 
that the joyful opportunities will all have passed, that 
death will come and then — what ? 

3. Godliness furnishes positive comfort in this life. 

Every human life has its difficulties and troubles. 
Goodness does not exempt from the comjiMjn lot. A 



PRESENT PROFIT OF GODLINESS 105 

godly man suffers pain, and the separations of life 
bring sorrow to him as toi others, but the godly char- 
acter and the godly activities insure helps that none 
other can receive. The best comforts are not those 
that are brought to one from without, they are not in 
the form of material benefits, they are not even friends 
who will keep away loneliness and enliven the weary 
hours, they are not the purchases of wealth, but they 
are states of mind, conditions of spirit. In time of 
blindness it is good to be guided by friendly hands 
along^ a dangerous way, but it is better to see with 
one's own eyes ; it is good in time of weakness to be fed 
with other hands, but it is better to have strength 
enough to feed oneself ; it is good to listen to words of 
consolation from human lips, it is better to experience 
their truth in the soul. 

When sickness, failure, loss.come to many, they have 
no resources in themselves to sustain them, but the 
triumphs of godliness abound in such experiences. 
The soul that is joined to God by likeness of purpose 
and character has the inflow of divine support by a 
kind of right that God himself has established. He 
has written the pledge of all such help legibly in his 
word. The great sin problem which lies at the basis 
of all the evil of the world has been so solved that the 
forgiven sinner receiv(\s a ])eciiliar and piHH'ioiis sup- 
port, and, while the worldhng is embittered by his 
sorrows and lies in helpKvss prostration, through the 
divinely arranged channels are })()uring llu' I'lrnients 



106 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

of strength and greatness into the soul of him wha 
seeks to know the fruits of godhness. The fibre of a 
worldly character becomes coarser by the harsh dis- 
cipline of the world. The perception of delicate relief 
is blunted and the relief lost. The fibre of the godly 
character is the more refined, and the light afHiction 
which is but for a moment worketh that far more ex- 
ceeding and eternal weight of glory. The perception 
of the marvellous comforts provided is quickened and 
the world seems to be a store of bounties specially pro- 
vided for the human need. The purely spiritual and 
inexpressible thoughts and emotions constitute new 
argument and expression in themselves for the life of 
godliness. The announcement of trouble by our Sa- 
viour is made the basis for a ringing cry of triumph. 
"In the world ye shall have tribulation ; but be of good 
cheer, I have overcome the worid," and we add, "this 
is the victory that overcometh the world, even our 
faith.'' 

4. Godliness increases all the legitimate joys of life. 

If it did otherwise, it would annul its own claim to 
acceptance. To smother the natural dehghts of Kfe 
is no part of true religion. There is no' people so full 
of healthy joy as that people whose God is the Lord. 
The best delights of the life are those that godliness 
has taught. It snatches from the forces of evil many 
joys, purifies them and puts the seal of approval upon 
them. It seeks to regulate amusements and make the 
more serious business of life contribute to the pleasure 



PRESENT PROFIT OF GODLINESS 107 

of living. The strength of the godly man is said to be 
in the joy of the Lord. The purpose of Christ's rich 
instruction he declared to be that his joy might be in 
them and that their joy might be full. All of delight 
that the powers of mind or body can produce godli- 
ness swells to the flood. Riper visions open to the 
poet, fairer beauties to the Christian sculptor and 
painter, and to the ordinary mind the common joys of 
daily life are enriched by those subtle charms that the 
reverent mind ever obtains from its union with the 
divine. If the baser joys of life are refused, the 
wasteful and riotous, the enervating and luxurious de- 
lights of the worldly life are forsaken, it is because 
more real joys are found and not because the soul is 
sobered out of all care for a merry scene. 

6. Godliness adds to* the joys and possessions of 
this life. 

Its own peculiar treasures become the portion of the 
godly. The consciousness of personal acceptance with 
God through Jesus Christ is so unique that it can come 
only in a single way ; it is a joy and promotes joys of 
its own ; it is a treasure and leads to otlier values tliat 
at length make the soul rich in its possessions. The 
knowledge that follows godly living, the in(lis})utal)le 
revelations of the Spirit of Go<l to the soul loiii;' years 
before it passes out of the body, the i'rirdoin from the 
burden of sin wliich has been transferred to Christ 
Jesus having become as he came to bt^ the Saviour 
from sinSy the new delight in the widening (li)inaiii of 



108 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

truth as it spreads through hves and conquers hostile 
lands, the increase of blessed companionship now em- 
bracing the good of every age, all come as the abso- 
lute gains of godHness, and not the last gain is that of 
peace, concerning the provision for the life that now 
is. The sparrow tells the story and the hairs of the 
head call it daily to mind. "All these things shall be 
added unto you." Godliness is a problem in addition, 
ceaselessly piling up the accumulations of body, soul 
and spirit. The new interest that comes with godly 
hving in the lives of those about us, drawing us to 
new views of property, of association, of the use of 
time and speech and influence add unspeakably to our 
possessions. 

I would not lessen the value of earthly friendship; 
it rises in beauty on the wreck of a world, it reveals 
its lines of strength and writes its stories of happiness 
on the ruins of human nature ; but the addition that Is 
made to the ordinary human affection by the develop- 
ment of godliness can be learned only by experience. 
The home relation is glorified by it, and even the con- 
tact with the brute creation feels its influence. Tke 
compassion for the multitudes is no' platonic feeling, 
but the genuine emotion of the divine nature. The 
rise and growth of desires looking to the elevation of 
man, touching every part of his being and every rela- 
tion of his life, crowd out plans of selfishness that once 
reigned supreme and the secured treasure feeds with a 
living stream the verdant banks of hfe. Hours once 



PRESENT PROFIT OF GODLINESS 109 

idle are now packed with refreshing thoughts, and 
voices speak their thanks in places once unknown. 
The common business of life loses its secularity, as 
God is associated by prayer with all its transactions 
and recoignized as the source of all prosperity. The 
minute inspected by God requires faithful attention 
and thus the whole life is garnished with the beauty 
of a jewelled offering to God. The promises of God, 
the portion of the godly, add as much to the present 
life as the faith and confidence of their holders ex- 
tract from them, so that in all that makes this life 
useful, prosperous and happy the godly man in an 
inestimable measure has the advantage of tlic worldly 
man. With the sure glories of the heavenly world in 
one hand, and the multiplied advantages for this pres- 
ent world in the other, stands the Lord Jesus before 
us each, saying, "Come unto me and all shall be 
yours." 



VIII 
AN EXULTANT CRY 

"I have kept the faith."— II Timothy 4:7. 

breatMess attention to catch the 
final words of those we love. We ransack the biog- 
raphies of eminent persons to- find the last words that 
fell from their hps. These are the watchwords of par- 
ties and peoples. They easily become current, and if 
at all epigrammatic have remarkable longevity. Web- 
ster's "I still live" will be known when the close of his 
reply to Hayne has dropped from the declamations of 
the schoolboy. Tyng's "Stand up for Jesus" rings 
in song and exhortation from the lips of thousands 
that have never heard another word of his. Cook- 
man's "I'm sweeping through the gates" has been 
preserved in song and story. The last words of 
Goethe, "More light," are better remembered and 
more worthy of remembrance than many others from 
his gifted lips. Cries of victory and fear, of hope and 
despondency, of pain and pleasure, have fallen from 
dying lips. The last written words of men have been 

equally treasured. The close of the last essay, the 

no 



AN EXULTANT CRY 111 

final sermon, the last page of the last book, the final 
poem, are cherished with peculiar interest. This ob- 
servation of final thoughts and words is not confined 
to small minds and narrow households. The great 
ones of earth linger at such points and drink a holy 
inspiration. Thomas Carlyle pauses in thought and 
study by the dying Schiller, and notes the mild hero- 
ism of the man as he describes his feelings as "calmer 
and calmer," and marks his liveliness of spirit as for 
a moment he looks up to say, "Many things are grow- 
ing plain and clear to me," and then closed his eyes 
for his deep sleep. The world has hstened to the last 
^ords of Jesus and reverently treasured them in mem- 
ory and repeated oft, "It is finished." 

These last utterances can generally be divided into 
two classes : 

1st. Those which are of present concern, of mo- 
mentary application. Such cover only the time of 
sickness or the hour of departure. Socrates said, as 
he lapsed into insensibility after drinking the hem- 
lock : "Crito', I owe a cock to ^sculapius ; will you 
remember to pay the debt?" In these words lie meant 
to say: "I am now getting well; make for me tlie 
usual offering for recovered health." This had little 
reference to his past life and was only an index of his 
thought of death. It was of local concern, ai)i)lleal)le 
only to the hour and the event. 

A j>erson's thoughts absorbed in the strangeness of 
the event of a change of worlds takes coloring from 



112 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

it, and the expressions of the lips are not calculated 
to be an epitome of the sayings of the whole life. They 
have a value, but only in relation to a limited section 
of the being, a fragment of its existence. They can- 
not properly be taken as a rule of measurement for 
the whole period of life. A new face appearing stirs 
the fading faculties and a word leaps to' the lips. A 
question calls out an answer; a song moves to a re- 
sponse; a prayer starts an exclamation of devotion; a 
momentary awakening from forced sleep is accom- 
panied with an e j aculation of surprise ; words of coun- 
sel to friends fall last from the hps. So, when writ- 
ten, they may have only this local and temporary ap- 
plication. 

2d. Those which cover the whole hfe and are the 
expression of its energy, its direction, its purpose. 
They are such as give no' description of present scenes, 
but, like golden clasps, fold back upon the beginning 
of life and hold the leaves together as the book is 
closed. The mind may have been vigorously thinking 
and the words which voice its thoughts are weighty 
with what has been condensed from many gathered 
clouds. The last writing covers the years of experi- 
ence and does not necessarily disclose all that is pass- 
ing in the soul that hurries to the skies. As in entering 
the cars or boarding the ocean steamer, some will be 
full of "Good-byes" and others of admonition, others 
yet will speak finally some word indicative of the work 
that for years they have pursued — that is the symbol 



AN EXULTANT CRY 113 

of nothing connected with their departure, of all con- 
nected with their life of toil. 

These final words divide also naturally into two 
other classes : 

1st. Those of feeling or emotion. The soul grows 
introspective and takes cognizance of its own rapid 
changes, and watches the various hues of its own dis- 
turbed sense as we note the iridescence of the dove's 
neck in the blaze of the sun, and its words are only the 
index of what at the moment it observes. It may be 
bright or dark — it may be golden or of sombre hue. 
As the scientist who has taken poison into his system 
in the interest of scientific research, and records the 
changes in his condition as the moments fly as long as 
consciousness remains, so the spiritual emotions may 
be registered. The record will be only of spiritual 
emotions. Emotional utterance is very frequent and 
covers a large class of these expressions of which I am 
speaking. They may be of temporal nature or of tlie 
operation of the feelings through years. Neglectful 
or forgetful of all that is without, the soul may be 
absorbed utterly with the kaleidoscope of its own be- 
ing. The words spoken may be declarative of joy or 
fear or wonder at the soul's condition. It may be in 
roused emotion from some outward stimulant — the 
glory of the opening heavens, the sadness of a weep- 
ing company, the serenity of watching friends. Some- 
thing may suggest the persecutions of a life and the 
expression of the suffering of years finds utterance. 



114 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

The setting sun may throw a hngering beam through 
the open shutter and emotion responds with a cry of 
joy. The scent of the garden may be borne on the 
soft arms of the south wind, and as it leaves its treas- 
ure on the quick sense of the being the instant response 
is with words that savor of earth and heaven. The 
subhmities of Christianity may claim the deep emo- 
tions of the soul, long known, now grandly reahzed 
or now for the first time presented as to the thief upon 
the cross, and the last words will be dictated by the 
uphfted feelings. 

2d. Those of mental rest and deep conviction — ^the 
words of settled principle, apart from the emotive 
condition of the being. 

Here the soul is retrospective in its action. It turns 
upon its acts through a period of many years, that 
which exists in results of action, and now lives outside 
itself — that which has governed the whole Hfe and to 
which its various emotions have been subservient. Im- 
agination is made to fold its wings and sit upon its 
perch with all its golden plumage shimmering in the 
light that overtops the walls of glory and streams 
through the opening gate. The mind, thinking for 
the pen or the lip, takes account of the operations of 
the will, and whatever expression is made is index not 
of the sunbeams or cloud shadows that may be play- 
ing on the restless surface of the beating sea of life 
that now chafes the shores of the eternal continent 
and gathers crested waves from its veiy nearness to 



AN EXULTANT CRY 115 

the golden marge, but of that current that has steadily 
run through all the life and even now, bearing on its 
bosom the changing billow, is sweeping towards the 
opal beach. The prayer of the aged disciple as he 
closed life was the prayer of his infancy, "Now I lay 
me down to sleep." It was the expression of a life- 
long trust in the divine care. 

So then, friends, when we take into our thoughtful 
hours the last words of beloved ones, the last writings 
of those we admire, to seek comfort from them, or, as 
is often the case, to press them like sharpened arrows 
into the soul, tearing agape its healing wounds, let 
us discriminate between that which is local and tem- 
porary and that which covers the whole life ; between 
that which is emotional and changeful and that which 
finds its basis on the solid rock-bed of the being. I 
am persuaded that people make too much of the pain- 
ful utterances that they last heard from loving lips — 
too much, be it tenderly spoken, of the glad cries of 
tkose who have gone. It is not upon final utterances 
that we should seek to base the judgment of a life, be 
they good or bad. Many of the noblest of this world 
have suffered eclipse of peace and glory for a nioinont, 
but only we are assured that the Hght that dims the 
sun might burst with increased splendor on their souls. 
In such cases the Scripture finds its illustration as it 
declares: "For a small moment have I forsaken tluv; 
but with everlasting kindness will I remember theo." 

I shall never forget the afternoon of that summer 



116 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

day when, with a happy company, I sailed up the 
Hudson for a day's outing in the Catskills. As we 
entered the Highlands the fog settled over the hills 
and hugged the river in its close embrace. Slowly we 
made the curves, the shores hidden, the needle alone 
guiding the pilot. A party of which Mr. Beecher was 
one gathered on the upper deck ; there was little con- 
versation, but all were peering into the darkness that 
had come upon us in this most beautiful part of the 
river ; West Point was passed without a sight of the 
rocky cliff, and just as we turned and glided between 
Storm King and Dundenberg towards Newburgh Bay 
the westering sun smote the bank of fog with burning 
rays, filled it with its radiant splendor and lifted it 
like a golden crown about the distant hills that seemed 
transfigured as they stood on the far horizon, and the 
broad expanse of water gleamed like a golden pathway 
to the celestial city. Every head was bared and rap- 
turous adoration rose from every heart. The cloud 
and the narrow way had but prepared for the sur- 
passing glory of the brilhant scene on the open bay. 

Many a final word has .been spoken just as the 
shadow fell across the soul, to pass with lightning 
speed and make way for the long eternal day ; and 
friends are pining on account of that final word that 
was a child's cry, on whose face the smile appears 
while the tears yet chase each other down the cheek. 

If the word be momentary, regard it as such ; if it 
be emotional, give it only its just value; if it be that 



AN EXULTANT CRY 117 

weighty word of calmness drawn from retrospect of 
life, it may be treasured and used as means of com- 
fort and of blessing. 

Such a word was that of Paul, written in his old 
age from his Roman prison, to Timothy, the exultant 
cry of his strong soul, "I have kept the faith." 

But what is the value of this utterance.^ 

It is valuable : 

1st. Because it covered the whole life of the be- 
lieving Paul. It is not simply ''I am keeping the faith 
to-day ; past the persecution and the storm, I am upon 
the mount to-day. Having denied the faith before 
rulers and mobs, having quailed in the roaring tempest 
of human opposition and yielded to the reasonings of 
cultured Athenians, debased Corinthians, theistic bar- 
barians and worldly-wise Romans, I am to-day once 
more happy in the Lord and strong in the faith. Hav- 
ing doubted oft and grieved the Holy Spirit and the 
brethren, I honor the Spirit and encourage the breth- 
ren to-day by my steadfastness." It is not a ray of 
sunshine streaming on the a.oed apostle after many 
weeks and months of wretched despair. It is not tlie 
sudden recovery of the lost link of the cable that con- 
nects his soul with God across the untraveled abyss ; 
but it is "I have kept the faith," or, "I have been keep- 
ing the faith." The life sweeps into view. Labors, 
stripes, prisons, deaths, journeyin^s, perils of waters, 
robbers, his own countrymen, the heathen — in the city, 
the wilderness, the sea — among f/ilso breilinMi, in 



118 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

weariness, painfulness, watchings, hunger, thirst, 
fastings, cold, nakedness — "I ha've kept the faith" 
girdles it all. In the assembly of the monarchs, in the 
privacy of my prison, in the crowded cities of Asia, in 
the lonely sojourn in the wilderness, in the troubles 
without and trials within, "I have kept the faith." 

This was not an emotional cry, shot forth under the 
spur of heated debate and fiery opposition. It was not 
the reply to a hot challenge of his life, thought and 
purpose. It did not spring to his lips just as the axe 
of the executioner was falling upon his neck and the 
taunt of unfaithfulness sounded in his ears from the 
rabble crowd. It was deliberative; it was massive 
with facts that filled its cellular integuments and 
crowded themselves into every interstice. It lay on 
the even surface of his life with no danger of sliding 
from some mountain of neglect. His peace at Rome 
would have been a treasure toi himself and his friends ; 
his faithfulness there before Nero and the decaying 
empire would have been a blessed heritage for all; but 
the value of this utterance is in the life measurement 
that is in it. It is, "I have kept the faith." 

The fluctuating life should take its lesson here and 
now. The steadfast purpose alone can give any value 
to final utterances. If you sway from virtue to vice, 
from belief to doubt, from profession to denial in prac- 
tice, from advocacy to guarded silence — if you vibrate 
between the church and the world, between Christ and 
the Devil — if your life is spent in traveling a well- 



AN EXULTANT CRY 119 

worn path from the mountain to the valley, from the 
valley to the mountain, it will be a pleasure to know 
that death overtook you when well up the mountain 
side, but any special word that you may leave can 
never offset the shifting purpose of your life; th^ 
moving shuttle will weave a fabric that will be exam- 
ined when final words are forgotten or ignored. The 
steadfast life will make a solid base in which to fasten 
the staff on which you nail your colors at the setting 
of the sun. 

This utterance is valuable. 

2d. Because the faith kept was worthy the keeping. 
Many utterances of apparent heroism have lost all 
their richness and bravery when closely examined. 
The cry that has evoked the applause of the world has 
been sometimes the empty vaunt that has melted into 
vanished air, and the applause has changed to a howl 
of hate. History has taken the heart out of many a 
public declaration and left only a lifeless shell, has 
often cracked the shell to find it incapable of holding 
any vital truth. What was the faith Paul kept? Was 
there any value in it? 

It was the faith only delivered to the saints, not 
something evolved out of his inner consciousness, not a 
formulated creed spun out of his own musings. It 
was not the book of Romans, a masterly argument of 
truth which he proclaimed to the world in his dying 
cry. It was the failh that for ages and generations 
held as a mystery, had been made manifVst to tiie 



120 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

saints "to whom God would make known what Is the 
riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gen- 
tiles, which Is Christ In you, the hope of glory." 

The faith Paul kept was simple but sublime; the 
fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, the 
sinfulness of man and the atoning sacrifice of Christ, 
repentance and faith and godly living, the roadway 
to glory and honor and Immortality. It Included the 
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead as proving 
his doctrines and declaring as beyond question his 
deity, the Inspiration of the Scriptures, the necessity 
of the new birth, the atonement In his blood. Immor- 
tality, the eternal judgment with Its everlasting Issues. 

It was no temporary theory on unimportant topics 
that rose before the apostle's mind at the last. It was 
not a faith limited by the boundaries of the cradle and 
the grave, but entered Into those sublimities that are 
more glorious than creation, colossal as the plUars of 
the universe, valuable as the soul of man. 

The Inventor whose fertile genius has blessed the 
world, enriched the poor and saved the wasting wear 
of human energy, crowned with laurel wreath that the 
hands of working men and women have woven, may 
at the last speak of his great work. 

The great philosopher who drew the lightning from 
the clouds and bade It do his will, the sagacious soul 
that taught the world to whisper over wires that 
stretch the circuit of the globe, the men that have sent 
their gaze far up amid stellar spaces and down into 



AN EXULTANT CRY 121 

the microscopic world, widening the horizon of Hf e and 
making man sustain relations to innumerable worlds 
and forces, may each attest their faithfulness to that 
which has so blessed the world and yet be far from 
Paul at this moment of his exultant cry. 

His faith was concerning those enduring relations 
that the soul sustains to itself and to its God. The 
faith appealed to his acceptance by its very author- 
ship which was from God, by the medium of its com- 
munication which was the Lord Jesus Christ, by the 
character of its articles which met his want and satis- 
fied his soul. Nothing was loftier in the whole range 
of thought, nothing was more certain in the whole 
domain of the material, nothing was more necessary 
in all the provisions of the teeming universe. 

This faith that gave him through Jesus Christ 
pardon for sin, freedom from its power, assured liim 
of his immortality and taught him of the splendors 
that awaited him when he passed from eartli — this 
faith that promised like glory to all and laid the 
infinite riches of God at the feet of man for him freely 
to enjoy was worthy the keeping, and lie kept it to 
the end. It was not injured by the blows tli^it fell 
upon him; it was not obscured by the storms that 
swept through the heavens ; it was not damaged by 
the rejection of nobles ; it did not weaken as his years 
multiplied; it did not fail in supreme moments. He 
had declared this faith whicli God had revealcxl to Jew 
and Gentile alike, for it was the faith tliat each neede<d. 



122 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

There was nothing clannish in it. It was the faith of 
Christ that was to hft a lost world to plains of glory. 
It was the faith that lost sinners have a Redeemer in 
the Son of God ; that "God so loved the world that He 
gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth 
in him should not perish but have everlasting life;" 
that needy men have a personal friend and helper in 
the Lord Jesus Christ. It was a faith that required 
the active obedience of its adherents ; that necessitated 
godliness of life, separation from sin ; that showed 
loyalty to it by fruit in the life. It was worthy the 
keeping, and so gave value to this utterance of Paul. 
The great desire of many men is to die rich and 
leave a name for opulence in the earth. For this they 
toil diligently through the years and at last declare 
over their accomplished purpose, "I have kept the 
faith." But what faith have they kept? A commer- 
cial faith only — maxims of the world, the essentials 
for human regard and confidence. For this they are 
fitly honored ; but this is a poor dying cry. There is 
nothing in it but that which savors of the temporal ; 
the spiritual part of the being has no voice in it. 
There is an absence of God; an absence of the pro- 
visions for the wounded spirit ; an absence of the busi- 
ness concerns of eternity. It is a faith of too narrow 
proportions for an inhabitant of many worlds. No 
mighty spiritual structure can rise upon it with walls 
to cut the azure dome and spires to pierce the cloudless 
blue. It is unworthy mention as the symbol of a life. 



AN EXULTANT CRY 123 

This ought ye to have done and not to have left the 
other undone. Paul, too, was honest as a tent-maker, 
but he made no boast of this honesty in presence of a 
new world. His cry touched a worthier faith. 

Is there not here a lesson for those who have no 
positive faith beyond the business maxims of the 
world? The faith that is worthy of mention in the 
gray dawn of eternity must have eternal truth in it. 
"I have amassed a fortune" ; "I have become a re- 
nowned scientist''; "I have achieved fame as a mer- 
chant prince" — these are vain babblings compared 
with the whisper of the poor man that, dying on his 
pallet of straw, declares, "I have kept the faith of 
Christ." 

This word is valuable. 

8d. Because it is true. 

That which is simply scenic in final hours passes 
into rebuke ; that which cannot bear the crucible tests 
will be forgotten or remembered with pain. The 
truthfulness of this exultant cry was evidenced in the 
marks of the Lord Jesus in the body of the age<l dis- 
ciple, still prisoner for his Master's sake. No one 
challenges Paul; his word calls forth willing testi- 
mony spoken in many dialects, in many places. 

So, friends, though we may say witli the lips ''I 
have kept the faith," the value of the words will be in 
their truthfulness. Tliese passing days are writing 
the challenge to them. It is tlie lapse of the tongue, 
of the heart, of the will from the liigh and holy re- 



l^h SPIRITUAL SANITY 

quireniont-s of tJio fc-vith that will deface the record of a 
Pauline claim. The writing of each day is in charac- 
ters that will not be effaceii; life yields its trutliful 
testimony to the yiilue of any final claim. 

This utterance is yaluable. 

4th. Bec^iuse it declared the present and future 
riches of the apostle. The faith he kept, had condi- 
tional promises. They were solid with their weight of 
treasure. They assured the boundless resources of 
God to liim who was faithful to the end. A crown of 
life was secured. An inheritance was his, incorrupti- 
ble. A throne awaited him. The soul of the apostle 
was ringing with spiritual harmonies, while the in- 
strument for his destruction was being sharpened. 
God's peace, God's loye, God's joy, Grod's immeasura- 
ble benefits were his, and as from the cruelty of the Ro- 
man emperor he passed to liis coronation amid heaven- 
ly hosts, the heayens echoed to thunders of song that 
rolleil far away and broke in wayes of glory on the 
shores of worlds beyond the Roniiin's yision. The 
ability to utter truthfully tliis word disclosed a power 
of soul, an amplitude of being, a capacity for blessing 
which tlie shriyeled soul of the devotee of tliis world 
may en^-y. Keeping the faith of Christ not only en- 
riches, but prepares and educates to enjoy the ever- 
lasting possessions. Its higher glories and its tran- 
scendent beauties come to the disciple as he rises up 
into them bv his own effort and the mighty power of 
God. 



AN EXULTAN^J' (liV 125 

I pray you k<^:p the faitij. in no narrow sonse, tliat 
the faith in its broadness may brinr; you \/> its su- 
premo rewards, and wfjether or not it is g^iven you in 
the serenity of a cloudless sunset, possessing all your 
powers to sjrx.-ak words of calmness and stren/^ii in thu.- 
ears of listening friends as you move away into eter- 
nity, let your live-s send fortii the swc^^-t, blessed an- 
them that shall form no disry>rd witij the njusic of the 
skies. The sfx>ken word is g<^xxl, but it sinks to silence ; 
the nobler life is better, for its music is eternal. 



IX 

A THRILLING VISION 

*'Son of man, can these bones live?'' — Ezekiel 37:3. 

There was disclosed to the eye of the prophet of 
Israel a strange and thrilling scene. From his cham- 
ber where he pondered on the condition of the people, 
saw their revolting wickedness, mused on their idolatry 
and felt his soul bum within him with righteous in- 
dignation against so forgetful, so fickle a nation, 
where he followed the line of their marvellous history 
from the days of the angelic visitation on the plains of 
Mamre when Abraham sat in the door of his tent in 
the heat of the day, and Sarah within laughed at the 
message which her husband received, through the sale 
of Joseph and the Egyptian experience, through the 
wanderings, the settlement, the judgeship, the king- 
ship, the division of the people, and with a deep 'sigh 
poured his prayer up to heaven that a people so led 
might not be left to perish — from his chamber where 
he reviewed the judgments of God, flashing like the 
lightning from the gathered clouds, hurling the peo- 
ple with indignant hand from their land so hardly 

126 



A THRILLING VISION 127 

won, so divinely blessed, so fearfully cornapted with 
all the foul crimes of Sodom, king and peasant alike 
guilty, where he recalled the tender pity of God as he 
raised up deliverers and set kings after his own heart 
upon the throne and filled the land with plenty and 
called for repentance that he might forgive and 
cleanse their guilt, till the prophet's soul melted within 
him, and with brimming eyes he pleaded for Israel 
anew — from his chamber where his prophetic soul had 
felt its "deep, vehement, tragical emotions," he is led, 
the hand of the Lord upon him, the Spirit of the Lord 
within him, away from the habitations of men to a 
scene which to a man like one of the old Hebrew pro- 
phets was calculated to stir the depths of the being 
and awaken to a lively exercise his prophetic instinct. 

The Lord would test his faith. The Lord would 
teach his child a lesson. As the representative of all 
the sons of men the prophet is led forth. 

Not to the crowded haunts of men where the multi- 
tude sweep by in the heat of excited life, where the 
pulse beats high and the mind works \ngorously and 
the heart sends its steady currents through the whole 
being and the lungs freshen every current and the 
tingle of healthy life is felt — not where the stimulus 
of human enterprise awakens every sluggish faailty 
and hand in hand a multitude sweeps away all opposi- 
tion — not where the smoke rises from a thousand 
chimneys and the steam issues from a thousand tubes 
and the whirr of machinery declares the forces of the 



128 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

divine creation are harnessed to do the work of man 
and put to blush the miracles that paganized Christi- 
anity pretended to work in early days of darkness — 
not where batteries click with electric motion and dor- 
mant powers are waked to life and every scene Is 
thrilling In its teaching of activity — not to the mart 
where varied nations meet and in the contact all are 
quickened is the man of God who studies the ways of 
Providence led Vv^hen God would test his faith. 

But Ezekiel goes forth from the habitations of men 
into the dreary solitude and silence of a deserted plain. 
It Is a lonesome place, not Hke the crag where EHjah 
stood and saw the mountains rent in twain and the 
rocks break in pieces before the wind, heard the earth- 
quake rumble and the subterranean pillars of the earth 
crash Into ruin and the fire sweep by in destructive 
flame, and in the stormy elements felt his soul excited 
with most turbulent emotion, but the very silence of 
death brooded over the place where the prophet 
paused. The mountains rose in silent grandeur on 
either side once filled with living armies ; now the grass 
waved in the breeze and the rocks gave no token that 
the foot of man had ever pressed them. No echo lin- 
gered to tell of the wild shouts with which commanders 
roused their men, men threw themselves Into* the con- 
flict, as down each slope poured the mighty hosts and 
met In deadly contest on the plain between. No groan 
of dying man was In the breeze, no shriek of wounded 
told the tale ; far up and down lay only the bleached 



A THRILLING VISION 129 

bones of an exceeding great army. The bird of prey 
had feasted and gone. The keen eye of the vulture 
hghted on the plain, but the very scent of decay had 
gone. On jutting rock the raven paused to whet his 
beak, but sailed above the spot where once his feast 
had been, where now noi flesh for him was found. No 
prowling animals scoured the plain by night, for 
years had passed since the slain in battle fed the beasts 
and birds of prey. Bones only, dry and white, lay 
scattered on the ground. From their sockets they had 
slipped, and, gnawed of wolves, dragged here and 
there, lay in unconnected parts. Eyeless sockets and 
grinning jaws spoke of a skull within whose ample 
chambers only the dry dust of the plain had lodged, 
where once reason had her imperial seat. Bones of 
the limbs and trunk were clearly marked, but all were 
now dismembered. No life stirred in all the desolate 
region. Even the earth-worm had crawled to morc 
abundant living than these sun-bleached bones could 
give, and had spoken its verdict of hopeless death 
against them. The albumen and gelatine had gone 
and nothing but the lime remained. 

If the decaying bodies had made fertility more fer- 
tile and death had fed upon the forces of pnxluctive 
life, it was long ago and long forgotten, for the ])l.iin 
seemed blasted with these remnants of the luiin.in 
frame. 

Round about them was the prophet le<l ; yet all the 
same, the hills and sky were the walls and roof of a 



130 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

mighty sepulchre, a lonely mausoleum. The soul of 
Ezekiel is aroused. He mourns such dreadful destruc- 
tion. His heart grows sad within him as he reverts to 
the past and recalls the hour when in the buoyancy of 
life, in the strength of an organized body, these with- 
ered and scattered bones bore their part, when clothed 
with flesh and filled with life, as men, they knew the 
joys of men, and shared the toils and honors of the 
world, now only bones, marrowless and forbidding. 

But not for this revery is he led forth. "Son of 
man," speaks a voice in his ear, "Son of man, can 
these bones live ?'' 

Never a query so strange had ever claimed the 
thought of living man. A general question on the 
vitalizing of a body whose spirit had departed would 
have sent his thought back to prophetic records till he 
stood by Elisha in the home of the Shunamite and saw 
her dead boy wake to life, and he would have found a 
bold, decided, instant answer in the affirmative. But 
here was an unparalleled question. "Can these bones 
live?" 

Let him seek aid in his answer. Call for the skilled 
anatomist and, standing in the field of death, let him 
make reply. Furnish him with all the instruments that 
every age has discovered and perfected. Give him all 
the helpers he may desire till all the bones are assorted, 
and bone to bone, joint to joint, ball to socket, he has 
built up the bony structure and fastened it together 
from foot to shining dome, and he shall leave the 



A THRILLING VISION 131 

prophet saying, "What I have done upon the field I 
continue in the museum. I can classify the bones. I 
can liinge them together. I can label them, but when 
my work is done, you see a field of ghostly skeletons. 
I have no power to give them life." 

"Son of man, can these bones live?" 

Call for the physicist and the physiologist and send 
them, with all their learning and skill, to the perplexed 
prophet. What aid do they give? The constituents 
of flesh they will explain, the necessary organs with all 
their functions they will describe and wrap their flesh- 
like models round the anatomist's work and fill the 
trunk with painted heart and lungs and every organ 
in the healthy body, set eyes that see not in the sockets 
and stand the image on its feet and leave it, saying, 
"More I cannot do." 

Send the scientists of every school and let them 
carry the gray matter that they claim secretes tliought 
as the liver secretes bile and put it in the clianibers of 
the skull, and mix up blood and pour it in tlie lieart 
and send it by skillful apparatus tlirough tlie arteries 
and veins. Let them breathe into the mouth and nostrils 
their own living breath, hot from the healtliy lungs. 
Let the metaphysician be present and do his l)est on 
the mental powers and processes. liet scit iice make 
the dry bones live or let it confess its im]X)tence, 
acknowledge its failure, and leave the man of (ickI 
alone. They all retreat in mute acknowledgment of 
weakness, and no more life is there tluui when tlio 



132 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

prophet's e^e first rested on the plain. Humanity at 
its best has not helped him, and his own heart suggests 
no answer. "Son of man, can these bones hve.^^" His 
reply comes quick and hot, "Lord God, thou knowest." 
Whether into the dead dry bones life can come God 
alone knows. But will he reveal the secret? For this 
very purpose he has led the prophet forth into this 
dreary plain and waked his anxious thought by his 
startling query. For this he makes him teacher to the 
world. The lesson follows in thrilling speech, "Pro- 
phesy upon these bones and say unto them, O ye dry 
bones, hear the word of the Lord, Behold I will cause 
breath to enter into you, and ye shall live. And I will 
lay sinews upon you and will bring flesh upon you and 
cover you with skin and put breath in you and ye 
shall live : and ye shall know that I am the Lord." The 
obedient prophet hears these marvellous words. He 
follows the directions given him. Never such a ser- 
mon to such an audience. Never such an audience for 
a sane man to address. In the open temple of the 
heavens the preacher stood. Its walls were frescoed 
by the hand of God. The sun was witness, and a mil- 
lion orbs unseen of human eye gleamed in the far-off 
ceiling. From lofty heaven an innumerable host stood 
wondering and listening. The souls of those whose 
bones lay on the plain may have gazed upon the won- 
drous scene. The bones, Ezekiel's waiting audience, 
lay unmoved before him. His eye, strange kindhng 
with the fire within, is riveted upon them. His lips 



A THRILLING VISION 133 

open and, with his prophecy inspired of God, there 
was a noise and behold a shaking and the bones came 
together, bone to his bone, and lo ! the sinews and the 
flesh came upon them and the skin covered them above, 
but there was no breath in them. 

The proclamation had been made, the preaching 
was done. Taught of God, he cries, "Come from the 
four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain 
that they may live"; and as he spoke the air was 
stirred as by visible wings, the breath came into the 
organized bodies and they lived and stood upon their 
feet, an exceeding great army. And the voice of the 
Lord was heard, saying unto the Son of man, "Behold, 
O Son of man, these bones are the whole house of 
Israel. O my people, I will open your graves and 
cause you to come up and I will put my Spirit in you 
and ye shall live." And the prophet understood and 
delivered the majestic message to the children of men. 
It is our possession, our sacred treasure still. Ages 
have gone. The prophet is in heaven, but his pro- 
phecy and his teaching remains and to us to-day it 
comes with all its fresliness and all its power as we 
look out upon our city and its needs, our connnunity 
in its sad and discouraging features. The reign of 
deatli seems unending. I'he absence of all spiritual 
vitality betokens the steady decay that is in progress. 
Wc are living in the valley of (h'y bones. "C\ui these 
bones live?" 

With the ins|)irlng sceiie just descrihi'd In our 



134 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

minds let us go forth among the lapsed and sunken 
classes of our city, into the forbidding human valley. 
If primeval forests lifting their branches into the 
heavens filled with the songs of birds and bright with 
flaming colors, full of shade which their luxurious 
growths have caused, are now buried deep in the earth 
and under splashing waters by a subsidence in the 
crust of the earth, so by great moral sinkage have 
whole classes of our fellow men gone down. Whole 
sections are sunken. In the coal-bearing strata of 
Wales and Nova Scotia the slow submergence shows 
erect trees standing one above another on successive 
levels. In the Sidney coal fields fifty -nine fossil for- 
ests occur in superposition. We do not Hke to believe 
in any class division in humanity, but our eyes compel 
us to see the different strata as we view a cross-section 
of the human race. 

We go out and creep down to' where there is the 
unmistakable evidence of a human subsidence. A flood 
of ignorance and sin has swept over all and the stench 
of polluted waters fills the air. Enter and pass through 
a dwelling given up to such a class. The uncai'peted 
floor, tlie begrimed and naked walls, the broken, scanty 
furniture, the stifling, sickening atmosphere, the 
patched and dusty windows, through which a sunbeam 
stealing reveals the yet more dusty air, the ragged, 
hunger-bitten and sad-faced children, the ruffian man, 
the heap of straw where some wretched mother, in mut- 
tering dreams, sleeps off^ her last night's debauch or 



A THRILLING VISION 135 

lies unshrouded or uncofRned in the ghastliness of a 
hopeless death, while the drunken husband still drowses 
upon the floor, repeat in modem terms the scene that 
met the eyes of Ezeldel. These are sad cases and 
scenes, but may be witnessed every day in the com- 
munity about us. Lack of spiritual hfe is akin to the 
silence and death of the valley of dry bones. From 
cellar to attic neither Bible nor religious volume shall 
be found. The home of squalid poverty, of loath- 
some crime, of degrading drunkenness, whereon sin 
has left its dreadful mark, where hunger stares out of 
hollow eyes, and despair has settled on haggard faces, 
and drink-palsied men and drink-blotched and bloated 
women and sallow, sad-faced infants pine away into a 
painful death, and children shiver in the cold and 
spend the gift of charity for the drunken wretches 
they call parents — these, these arc the lifeless bones of 
the disgusting valley. 

Standing thus, I hear the old question, "Son of 
man, can these bones live?" I have made the rounds 
of all parts of this community to note the luimaii con- 
dition and the human want. From hours of painful 
visiting among poverty and wretcliodness and drunk- 
enness where now and then the gleam of gospel light 
brightened the dark chambers, and nohlo hatthng kept 
the destructive wolf i'vom \\\c door, though Wu^ bin 
held no coal and tl^.e larder was guiltless of jH'ovision — 
fix)m a home where distress sat in every corner and 
misery waved her Hlthy wand, and disease stood ready 



136 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

to take possession, and all the treasure of past years 
was held in a knit purse which opened into my hand a 
dozen pawn tickets of values once enjoyed — from a 
room where on a trunk with dishevelled hair and bloat- 
ed face and neck, and scanty garments and naked feet, 
lay the mother, once a member of a Presbyterian 
church, maudlin drunk, the husband absent on a de- 
bauch, once class leader of a ]\Iethodist church, a 
daughter, child of Jesus, scrubbing at the washboard 
for the means to keep them all together in their mean 
and cruel hfe, the f aitliful m^ember of a Baptist church 
— from a room where in the window sat a tliin-faced 
woman whose breath was hot with drink, and in an 
easy chair by the table sat another woman, whose 
tongue was ready loosed by the devil's drink, their 
minds too dim to catch the sense of Jesus' truth or 
know his condemnations that I opened to them, I 
grasped the hand of a faithful missionary, saying, 
^'Can these bones live?" and liis reply was the repeti- 
tion of the question. I ask Ezekiel, taught of God, 
the answer, and it rings with his instant response and 
is given with Scripture clearness. 

But before he utters it let the anatomist of charity 
enter and give reply ; he who has studied all the wants 
of human kind and weighed in scales of nicest balance 
all supplies, who has dissected all this misery, poverty 
and crime, and who has classified it, and his answer is : 
"It cannot live, it is be^^ond hope." Let the physiolo- 
gist of religion come and tell us of these classes, and, 



A THRILLING VISION 137 

though he knows the elements of the moral and spirit- 
ual body, he dares not promise nor predict hfe from 
these dry bones. Let the humanitarian come and the 
scientific religionist, with all the helps known to skill- 
ful thought and generous feeling, and the mass but 
absorb the efforts with no change, and they venture 
no reply to the question: "Can those bones live?" 
Ezekiel, answer us in the name of God. "Prophesy, O 
son of man, and say, O ye dry bones, hear the word of 
the Lord," is his reply. And when you have delivered 
this message with all faithfulness then lift up your 
voice and cry to the wind-like Spirit, "Breathe upon 
these slain," and, though ye say their bones are dried 
and their hope is lost, yet shall they live and know that 
the Lord hath spoken and that the Lord hath per- 
formed it. 

By the prophet's faithfulness life was given to the 
dry bones ; in Christian faithfulness even tliese shall 
live. The force that shall lift the sunken mass, that 
shall quicken the inert, dead soul, is the truth of the 
gospel of Christ, given by man, inbreathed by the 
Holy Ghost. 

For this the multitudes wait and the promises glow 
on the pages of the Holy Word. "The Lord's hand 
is not shortened that it cannot save, nor his ear heavy 
that it cannot hear." "Th()n<2,h ye have lain anions; 
the pots, yet ye shall he :\s \hc wings of a (l()V(\ cov- 
ered witli silver and her fi'athers with yeUow gold."' 

The whole truth with its Scripture illustrations 



138 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

brings two thoughts clearly to view as involved in the 
salvation of the careless, as well as the debased. 

How shall this city, this community, be aroused to 
life and saved? 

1. By the Christian's gospel proclamation every- 
where. 

Ezekiel, with faith supreme, spoke to the dry bones. 
God commands his children to declare his gospel in 
the faith and love of it to all. "To every creature" 
is Christ's word. "To every man his work" is his 
forceful teaching. Had the prophet refused to go 
out to the valley of dry bones for any reason, he had 
never had them for his audience. Had he been ap- 
palled at their sterile condition and refused the truth 
to them, assured that it was useless because they were 
so dry and dead, then they had never revived. 

Child of Jesus, refresh your energy and hopeful- 
ness in the exhaustless love of Christ. See the mean- 
ing of the cross streaming with holy blood, hear that 
pleading voice of the Son Divine calling, "Come unto 
me and drink." See the crowd of lepers and deaf and 
dumb and blind and fevered and filled with devils, and 
the Magdalens and repentant Peters, and, with a faith 
that is supreme, speak out the gospel promise into 
every ear as your highest business, your noblest voca- 
tion, your grandest privilege, that the word of the 
Lord may have free course and be glorified. 

An earnest Christian says, "Enthusiasm, love and 
sympathy are needed in successful work." These all 



A THRILLING VISION 



139 



are the gifts from Christ to bring his word in contact 
with the souls of men. He has given his assurance 
that his word shall not return unto him void. 

Like Ezekiel we must make 

2. An appeal to the wind-like Spirit. 

Though the bodies of men are built up, cleansed, 
fed and provided with every necessity ; though the 
pledge be in every house and every name to the pledge ; 
though in order and decency the multitudes live, yet is 
there not that real life that is essential. Bone found 
its bone, flesh covered them, the skin wrapped all 
about, but life failed to come till with the look and cry 
to heaven, the breath came upon them. This may 
seem very arbitrary and meaningless ; nevertheless, it 
is the divine way. It is the only way to secure life to 
the spiritually dead masses of humanity. So in the 
early day the disciples preached, and when proclama- 
tion had been made of the word they lifted their eyes 
to heaven and cried for him of whom the Saviour had 
spoken to them, and the Holy Ghost descended upon 
them like flame and three thousand were converted In 
a day. 

Times change, but truth remains the same. With 
pungent preaching of the gospel from every lip and 
life, with prayer to God, we have a right to believe 
that this city will be shaken, and that there will rise 
from its low places, from its depressed quarters, a 
mighty spiritual army clothed and in their right 
minds, singing Immanuel's praise. 



X 

"A PILLAR OF SALT AND ITS LESSON" 

"She became a pillar of salt." — Genesis 19:26. 
"Remember Lot's wife."— Luke 17:32. 

More than nineteen centuries He between this record 
and Christ's reference to it. Both are historic facts. 
The power to recall events of the past, and live again 
in the midst of scenes and associations long since 
changed ; to close the eyes and see faces now wrinkled 
and seamed with age and care, fair and smooth again ; 
heads now silvered, black and glossy; to renew one's 
own days of strength and joy ; to bring again into the 
thoughts what has been read or seen or heard, is one 
of the richest blessings granted us in our creation. 
The failure of this power we reckon among our mis- 
fortunes. When we become conscious that it is more 
difficult to people our silent hours, and our thoughts, 
travel in a circle and are tinged only with the present ; 
when we think that we shall not be able to recall the 
events of the passing days, that the books we read, the 
stories we hear, the great historic events we note will 

pass away from us, and be to us as though they had 

140 



^'A PILLAR OF SALT" 141 

not been at all, a pain is added to our being. To' live 
only in the present is toi be imprisoned in a narrow 
dungeon. To be unable to modify the thought of to- 
day by the thoughts of other days and other men, to 
be unable to impress the experience of other years 
upon the activities of to-day, is to be reduced from the 
dignity and glory of manhood to the ephemeral life 
of other beings. 

The effect of the unconscious operation of memory 
upon our lives is prodigious. The effort to- live with- 
out it would consume all our energies. All things 
would be experimental from day to day. The extra- 
ordinary exercise of memory has added tc the power 
and influence of those otherwise but slightly gifted. 
It is not strange, therefore, that this faculty is trained 
vigorously in all practical theories of education. That 
its neglect is perilous, that the child is charmed by the 
return to its mind of things already learned, that its 
intellectual stores are ever ready at the call upon the 
paying teller of memory, are among the great facts 
of life. It serves the noble purpose of saving life 
in exigencies. To remember what ought to be 
done in important crises is to be of great value 
in the world. It is the solid pillar of a good 
education. 

No wonder, then, that he wlio made it uses it so 
efTcctually in the spiritual training of liis cliildren, 
that it becomes a prime factor in building up the re- 
ligious hfe, and that in tlie spiritual culture of cliil- 



142 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

dren its neglect is the occasion of years of wandering 
and sin, of habits that never fail to afflict the life. 

As the wise parent hangs upon the walls of his home 
those pictures that shall constantly suggest good, 
helpful and inspiring thoughts and actions, sO' does he 
also store the mind with noble precepts that memory 
shall use as ever-present incentives to worthy living. 
It is not only the immediate effect of evil surroundings 
that is to be dreaded, but the constant presenting of 
them to the mind when they are changed. For not 
only the good but the bad is recalled, not only the 
wholesome but the sickening. Those glorious scenes 
that have thrilled the whole being and those terrible 
events that have blanched the cheek, those inspiring 
words that stimulated to heroic endeavor, and those 
burning words of shame that seemed to scar the lips 
that uttered them — those stories that held a truth, and 
those that contained a corruption, alike are frescoed 
on the walls of the inner temple. 

He has been wise who has chosen spots for his hours 
or weeks of rest from toil that are worth recalling, 
who has selected companions for life-long thought and 
picked books of helpful interest. For, though the rest 
days fly swiftly into the past, their harvest does not 
end so soon. The joy, the calm, the gaiety, the fasci- 
nation, the glare, the laugh, the sigh, the pure, the 
gross, the sweet, the bitter, shall all come back again. 
There is no need to command this faculty with stern 
words and threats of punishment to do its work. With- 



"A PILLAR OF SALT'' 143 

out enforcement, even in the dreams of the night, and 
reveries of the day, it will perform its mission. The 
laughing waves of ocean, the singing trees of the for- 
est, the sighing pines of the hillside, the murmuring 
grasses of the field, the rollicking brook, the frothing 
fall, the lonely path, the rural and the urban, the sky 
by day, its lunar glory at the midnight hour, all that 
has charmed shall charm again. And not this only, 
but the sweet associations and budded friendships and 
faithful words and earnest discussion, faces kind and 
forbidding, noble and base, acts generous and selfish, 
coarse and refined, shall all return to move us yet 
again. 

Sometimes we seem centuries old, we can remember 
so much. And often we wish we had not remembered 
what has dulled another day and blasted another hour. 
The slightest thing has recalled it, so many servants 
has memory — a face, a tone, a perfume, a shadow. 
The only way not to remember the evil is not to be 
associated with it ; not to remember bad things is not 
to know them. Youth stores the treasures of its later 
years with good or ill, and every passing day is add- 
ing to the pleasure or pain of ages far remote. The 
operation of this faculty is dechircd to continue for- 
ever. And why not? It is not of the flesh, nor in the 
flesh. It is of the spirit and the body cannot de^ 
stroy it. With change of worlds it is unchanged. 

"Son, remember," is the corrective call of the future 
in the Lord's parable that put the thoughts of justice 



144 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

in a wounded spirit. To be constantly recalling evil 
is to be unhappy. The man or woman who has Hved 
unworthy years, bedraggled in the slums, and sits in 
the dawning of a better life, ever thinking of the past, 
its wicked ways, its old habits, its sorry sights, its 
vain, shameful, weary wanderings, grows sad and 
pines in a wretched f orlomness of spirit. The sinner 
thinking of his sin, the drunkard and the debauchee 
of his cups and his vileness, the worldling of his sport, 
drenched in the passions of ungodhness, makes no' ad- 
vance in healthy, vigorous being. And what if this 
should be his eternal pursuit.^ And so the Scripture 
calls to him to "forget those things that are behind," 
that is, to fix his thoughts on things before until they 
have become a part of blessedness that shall give de- 
light and help in their recall. 

We cannot absolutely forget, but we can crowd into 
life all things worthy of remembrance to dispute the 
right of way with baser things and crowd them to the 
wall. The gospel, therefore, supplants the evil with 
the good ; it does not remove sin to leave a vacuum into 
which seven devils may return, for a memory is some- 
times sevenfold stronger than a present act, but it 
substitutes a good for a bad ; it builds into the being 
constantly that which will help it in its present and 
its future. Jesus ever gave something to fill up the 
thoughts of those whose past lives had only evil in- 
spirations and suggestions in their recall. It is vain 
to call men from evil and then leave them alone, rescue 



"A PILLAR OF SALT'' 145 

them from perishing and leave them to the daggers 
sharpened on the whetstone of their past. That is a 
rescue which destroys itself. The helpful worker will 
introduce new thoughts, new scenes, attractive to the 
taste and abilities of the rescued, that memory of the 
evil may not altogether hold the being under its awful 
spell. 

It is strange, then, detecting this principle of work 
in Jesus Christ, noting his effort to replace the repul- 
sive with the beautiful, the severe with the gentle, the 
forbidding with the attractive, marking his choice of 
the lovely in creation, the hly from the field, the spar- 
row from the air, the glowing sky, to find him calhng 
attention to an incident shocking to the tender sense 
of every age, among the things apparently rather to 
be forgotten than remembered. It is the impulse of 
decency in every family to' cover its deformities, to 
blot out the evidences of its past weakness and sin, to 
extol the virtues and palliate the vices of ancestors. 
To dwell on some ancestral evil and bring it into pub- 
lic notice, to put together some dismembered family 
skeleton and call attention to it, would be counted evi- 
dence of insanity. No family, however wise or 
wealthy, noted or exalted, has a perfectly clean record. 
There are chapters erased, pictures turned to the wall, 
names seldom mentioned, events of which succeeding 
generations are desired to be ignorant. And tliis 
effort to remove offensive stains is not ignoble but 
commendable. 



146 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

But here the Great Cleanser Kfts into* prominence 
an act of sinful disobedience and writes anew a fading 
story of human weakness on a crumbhng stone. If 
the fiery storm surcharged with sulphur that swept 
over the cities of the plain and buried them in its awful 
flood, and threw its saline spray over the lingering 
woman, consuming life and encrusting the body, had 
been forgotten, it was called to' mind again. Its hor- 
rors were renewed, the suff^ering of the destroyed peo- 
ple was again rehearsed, and the woman's violation of 
the divine command of mercy declared. If no' one of 
the basaltic columns of the region could be identified 
by the antiquarian as the one whose heart was the wife 
of Lot, so that the story itself grew dim with passing 
years, it was all recovered again in this call that sum- 
moned from the past into the living present that single 
member of a family in her thoughtless or headstrong 
act of disobedience at the very moment of the sublime 
exhibit of the divine mercy to her and the divine wrath 
to others. Such a recall of such an event by such a 
teacher is worthy of the world's thought. It has not 
been foTgotten since. Thousands have reread the 
story and taught it in all its wretched minutias, and I 
bring it again before you, thrusting our thought into 
the dismal past on the very threshold of a future that 
we hope is to be brilliant with blessing, glorious with 
gladness, mighty with mercies, sweet with saintliness, 
and flooded with the fulness of the gracious gifts of 
God. It shall not obscure the divine blessing by its 



"A PILLAR OF SALT" 147 

momentary shadow, but from it shall come an inspira- 
tion that shall make our praise continuous as our ser- 
vice is unfaltering. 

To "remember Lot's wife" is to take cognizance 
also of a saved man and a ransomed family, of the 
gracious purpose of God toward the weak and un- 
worthy. It is not simply to look upon wrong made 
monumental, though neglected mercy stands declared 
in the pillar of salt. Here we gaze upon the truth of 
the ages that the disobedient have no permanent part 
in the saving provisions of God, that they who look 
back longing for the destroyed pleasures, the ease of 
sinful indulgence, rather than for the service of a just 
and loving God, cannot enter into possession of the 
treasures of God, but shall be hidden in the overflow 
of their wretched past. To "remember Lot's wife" 
is not to go into the dreary ages of the past, and bur- 
row into the corruption of Sodom, to bring again to 
mind a traveling company, angel-warned, hurrying 
from the fierce sweep of a destructive tempest, and the 
venturesome woman whose escape was stayed by her 
own act, but it is rather to look into our own past and 
observe the blight that marks its sin and follies, the 
waste that lies along the track of its disobediences, the 
ruin of much toil, the hot fires that still rage on tlie 
site where passion conquered and wrath exploded, 
where wilfulness triumphed and selfishness showed it- 
self, where pride and malice were indulged, wliore an 
evil thouglit or word or purpose was clierished, and 



148 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

question whether there is in us any desire to live m 
such a state or abide in that condition of mind and 
heart in which we shall be Hkely to be overcome once 
more. 

It is a lesson of to-day that greets us. Memory 
gives us our past. Shall it be our future? Shall old 
passions and prejudices, old habits and indulgences, 
old enmities and hatreds hold us in their thraldom till 
we become monuments of their indulgence? Shall 
lying and profanity, peculation and fraud, deceit and 
insolence still hold our feet from the ways of noble 
manhood? Shall worldliness and greed, shall Sabbath- 
breaking and miserliness, shall any form of selfish in- 
dulgence allure us with sufficient power till we shall 
embody them in permanent form in this community? 
The expression of our life is becoming fixed ; it cannot 
soon be changed. Lot's wife is not a saline pillar in 
an Eastern land, but a Kving person over whom the 
surges of his own past have gone till his future is 
made certain in the firm mould in which he is en- 
crusted. Shall your past business habits in which 
there has been the Sodom taint be continued? Shall 
that which has prevented you from being all that you 
might have been still exercise its power over you? 
Then shall you show to those hastening on to a broader 
life and a sweeter spirit a petrified pillar, a column of 
salt. Your past shall give to you its character in un- 
alterable shape. Blessed is the memory of the truth : 
that, as we break away from all evil and hasten to the 



"A PILLAR OF SALT'' 149 

good, as we sever the associations that have been de- 
basing and form those that are elevating, as we rise 
out of the corruption, ignorance and folly of a wrong 
course, we change in character and have more fruitful 
forms of life; that life itself quickens and hastes to 
new and more beautiful expression; as the thraldom 
of the past tended to harden and bind into' the still- 
ness and stiffness of death, so the loyalty to truth and 
right tends to make vital and changeful with the 
pulses of life the whole being. The service of Christ 
is Christ serving in you. The adoption of the way of 
salvation is the quickening of every vital element in 
the whole being and the reception of the impulse of 
Christ towards the forms of his exalted beauty. With 
such a stimulative and formative influence, it is im- 
possible to become rigid — impossible to be held fixed 
in changeless character — impossible that the past 
should set the pattern for the future. 

True Christian living approximates the divine, 
moves on to higher planes, and unfolds richer ele- 
ments and attains spiritual beauty. Loyalty to the 
divine command of progress alone carries one away 
from the unseemliness of his past life. Lot was obedi- 
ent and every step took him farther away from Sodom. 
He is the type of the Christian traveling away from 
all that is unlovely in his life. Lot's wife became a 
lonely shaft of warning on the hillside, and a type of 
him who disregards the law of progress and sbiys his 
steps till soul and spirit are stamped with indelible and 



150 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

unalterable evidences of his sin. Who has not already 
felt the power of his past life hindering his advancing 
footsteps? Who has not found it easy to be content 
with the first efforts toward a changed life ? Who has 
not said, '^I am above the smoke and smirch of the city 
of sin — I will rest content"? It is at just that point 
that the lesson should reach us. The past can over- 
take and capture that position. It is a redoubt that 
cannot be successfully defended. 

The young Christian who feels secure and halts, the 
individual who has escaped from the practice of any 
besetting sin, the fugitive from harassing thoughts 
and plundering habits who in fancied security aban- 
dons vigorous effort, prolongs the story of Lot's wife. 
The lesson is large enough for a church — practical 
enough for us. Church life may be cast in moulds and 
become monumental. All its increase may be from 
without, as sweeping sands may pile about a standing 
column. It may stay its work and refuse the law of 
progress and enlargement, and no human power can 
make it other than a Lot's wife. See the obelisks that 
stand along the line of history. A once living, throb- 
bing church of Christ is the heart of each. Their 
work was done when they were satisfied with their past 
and neglected their present. 

With special power does this warning come to us. 
A thousand voices call us on ; the future is more at- 
tractive than the past. Content with low ideals of in- 
dividual and church life, at rest where every call for 



"A PILLAR OF SALT" 151 

action is loud and imperative, we shall deserve to be 
imprisoned where we are. But with open face toward 
the great Leader, with holy purpose of steady ad- 
vance, with resistance to every force that would stay 
our steps, the years to come shall find us far away 
from every present attainment. Replete with the good 
gifts of God, strong with the pulses of the divine life, 
with lofty thought and grand conceptions and worthy 
experience, a history luminous with noble deeds and 
sublime achievement — this is worthy our effort, this 
shall be our portion if we shun the erro-r and so' rightly 
remember Lot's wife. 

It was not a sudden impulse, but the result of 
growth, of movement away from the selfish life, that 
was seen on the Nova Scotia coast when the Atlantic 
struck on one of the sharp and cruel rocks. In the 
furious sea one man struck out for the shore. Driven 
back by the boisterous waves, he cried, "No man can 
live in such a surf." "You can but drown," said a 
quartermaster. "Try it again." And says the cliron- 
icler in graphic words : "The resolute man, fully 
alive to the peril, did try it again, and eventually 
made his way through the angry waters safe tO' the 
shore, nearly a hundred yards away. There, benumb- 
ed by his long stiniggle in the water and by his hard 
labor through the cold and snow on shore, and almost 
exhausted, he met the Claney brothers. With a cap, a 
pair of socks and boots and sixty fathoms of line, 
seven-eighths rope, he went again to the shore. 



152 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

"A large number of people had left the ship and 
were crowded on the sea-washed surface of the rock 
on whose ledge the ship had struck. 'Some one must 
take them a line or most of them will be washed off,' 
said the seaman. 'No man can take out a line in such 
a surf/ cried Claney, who thought him crazed by the 
sudden strain on strength and life. 'I shipped to do 
my duty to my officers, my shipmates and passengers/ 
said the sailor simply, 'and in God's name I will take 
it out or drown in doing it.' Then, being himself safe 
on shore and out of danger, he took the bight of the 
rope in his mouth, ran down the rocky shore, plunged 
into the awful breakers and succeeded in reaching the 
rock. Having secured his line, he swam back again 
and fastened the rope to a stake which he had driven 
into a crack of the rocks. Then back and forth 
through this Hell Gate of the sea, back and forth 
from four o'clock till seven o'clock, three endless hours, 
he came and went, helping the chilled and terrified 
passengers, helping to save over fifty men, many of 
whom must have perished in unaided effort or have 
been forced into the sea from the rock by others crowd- 
ing up from the ship before any assistance came from 
the mainland. Then strength failed him. As he neared 
the shore he threw up his arms and they thought him 
lost, but a friendly wave cast him, more dead than alive 
high up on the beach; he was taken to the house, 
warmed and restored, and went back to England with 
life enough left to jump overboard from his ship just 



"A PILLAR OF SALT" 153 

as she was entering the Mersey, and save the life of 
an unknown person who had fallen from a passing 
boat.'' Such heroism is superlative. It is the growth 
of a heroic soul. It is the opposite of the stagnant 
statue of salt. 

And there is call for the exercise of just such vir- 
tues in Christian work in every great city ; for from 
wounded lives, from sin-crushed spirits, from ignor- 
ance and impurity, from superstition and bigotry, 
comes the gurgling cry of drowning thousands. They 
perish, and who shall save them? Not they who are 
infantile in Christian virtue, not they who' are stag- 
nant in Christian life, but they who, heeding the mil- 
lion-tongued call to growth, and using the million- 
handed gifts of God, have become Christ-hke, and are 
ready with fullest souls to "endure the cross," despise 
the shame, and at length occupy the throne with the 
King Emanuel, clothed in white, radiant in glory. 



XI 
THE DIVINE MINISTRY AND ITS RESULT 

**Thy gentleness hath made me great." — II Samuel 22:36. 

This passage Is found in the last song of the sweet 
psalmist of Israel. Far advanced in life, weary with 
war and connnotion, national struggle and personal 
contest, conscious that he has approached the hour of 
departure from the land he loved, the city he had cap- 
tured and made the capital of the realm, the palace he 
had builded, from the mighty men that had been faith- 
ful to him and still loved him, from his son whose 
splendid reign is well inaugurated, he casts his eyes 
over his strange life from its boyhood among the 
sheep in the green pastures and beside the still waters, 
or in some conflict with the thieving wolf or bear or 
lion, through his wondrous introduction to public life 
in the contest with the giant of Gath, through all his 
subsequent history of rise and fall, his experience with 
the moody Saul, the plotting Joab, the wicked Absa- 
lom, the yet more wicked heart within his own breast, 
till his soul fills with a sense of the strong arm that 
has been around him, the mighty presence that has 

154 



THE DIVINE MINISTRY 165 

accompanied him, the glorious God that has pro- 
tected and blessed him, and he sings, "The Lord is 
my rock and my fortress and my deliverer. The 
God of my rock, in him will I trust; he is my shield 
and the horn of my salvation, my high tower and my 
refuge, my Saviour," and recounting his individual 
mercies set over his ill-desert, his heart melts and he 
is constrained to put highest in the catalogue of the 
divine perfections as shown to him and influencing his 
life THE DIVINE GENTLENESS— "Thy gentle- 
ness hath made me great" is his willing testimony. 

It is not because David has seen but a few elements 
of the divine character that he selects this as having 
most power upon himself. If any man ever swept the 
full circle of divine attributes surely David can claim 
place beside him. He knew the divine power, he had 
seen the divine glory, he felt that justice and judg- 
ment were the habitation of God's holiness. He had 
sung his praise as Creator, as King, as Warrior, as 
Controller of all the forces of nature, using them at 
his will, as the Pardoner of iniquity, the Shelterer of 
the refugee, the Saviour of the sinner, the Healer of 
the wounded, the Blessed One showing mercy to his 
anointed, to David and to his seed forevermore, and 
clustering every virtue, all grandeur, each element of 
divinity shown to himself and to all the sons of men 
since Adam's day, he sweeps them as strings of a 
glorious harp and tlie music that floats forth is ac- 
companiment to the sublime strain that from liis own 



156 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

voice reaches us in the words of the text, "Thy gentle- 
ness hath made me great." 

Dr. Taylor says: "This expression is to me the 
gem of the psalm. I am never weary in recurring to 
it. As in looking on a spacious landscape every fea- 
ture of which is beautiful, the eye finds itself at length 
resting with supreme satisfaction on some one object 
of surpassing loveliness within it; or, as in Hstening 
to a piece of music, all of which is inspiriting, the ear 
catches up some specially bewitching strain which we 
keep hunmiing over to ourselves in all our intervals of 
labor ; so after we have read this whole psalm, we come 
back again and again to this delightful phrase. It 
falls upon the ear as if with the soft breathings of the 
^Eolian harp, and amidst the jewels which shine out of 
this book of truth there is not one that sparkles with a 
radiance so divine as this, ^Thy gentleness hath made 
me great.' It is indeed the very heart and center of 
the cross of Christ. David felt that God's kindness to 
him in his weakness, his waywardness, his very wan- 
tonness of sin, had Hfted him up to the external great- 
ness of his throne and had built up in him the internal 
greatness of his character." 

It is not difficult for us to discover what David had 
seen of the divine gentleness thus to impress his soul. 
The study cannot fail to bring the same beneficent 
results to us. 

David had seen it from his standpoint as a ruler. 

He recognized God as King over aU, and discerned 



THE DIVINE MINISTRY 157 

the element of gentleness in the administration of his 
government. He himself had ruled with a sword in 
his right hand; destruction had been the portion of 
his enemies. Many readers of the Old Testament see 
only a greater David at the head of the armies of 
heaven. But the Psalmist, with keener gaze, saw the 
tender character in his God and bears his emphatic 
testimony to confound the superficial judgment of this 
century and of any other that pronounces the God of 
Israel a harsh, implacable God of wrath. 

David as a ruler had punished ill-desert with a rig- 
orous hand, and, though he had spared Joab, yet he 
says to Solomon, "Let not his hoar head go down to 
the grave in peace," and, though he spared the curs- 
ing, stoning son of Gera, yet, departing, he bids his 
enthroned son to "hold him (Shimei) not guiltless, but 
to bring his hoar head down to the grave with blood." 
Revolt against him he was ever ready to' punish harsh- 
ly, and, though he was anxious to' deal gently with 
Absalom, yet the conspiracy was eagerly crushed. 
When the son of Nahash, king of the children of Am- 
mon, ruled in his father's stead, and David thought to 
requite the father's kindness by show of comfort to 
the son, the rebuff of his generous purpose brouglit 
out his men of war and the land shook in the conflict of 
the fighting forces. As a ruler David exercise(l bis 
power over the weak for the gratification of his own 
selfish purposes, and his iron heel was felt in the home 
of Uriah. Power was his and he did not scruple to 



158 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

use It for himself. So when he viewed the divine gov- 
ernment from the throne of his own dominion and saw 
and felt the gentleness of the magisterial hand as it 
had been laid upon himself , his soul was stirred within 
him. Though the divine power was perfect and all 
the forces of destruction were in the Almighty's hand, 
though he had been rebellious, disobedient, far more 
than Absalom had in the earthly home, though the 
people had been unworthy of protection and blessing, 
but had deserved rather chastisement and captivity, 
yet to people and king God had been gracious and the 
severity of all his dealings was lost in the gentleness 
with which his will was exercised. "He sent from 
above, he took me ; he drew me out of many waters, he 
delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them 
that hated me," is the burden of his song. 

That government that instantly punished the 
guilty, that heard no prayers for mercy, that estab- 
lished its prisons and filled them, that set its officers at 
every point to hale offenders, and its executioners to 
punish them without hope of reprieve or word of pity, 
was not the government of David's God. 

A father held the throne and the hand of authority 
was laid with the gentle warmth of love upon the sons 
of men, and when. In the days of his sin, he felt the 
pardon of his King, this monarch's heart was more 
than ever moved at the great provision made for the 
forgiveness of such guilt as his. There was gentle- 
ness of marvellous character in the divine government 



THE DIVINE MINISTRY 159 

viewed from the throne of Israel's king. This David 
learned to praise. It wrought upon his soul and made 
him gentler, nobler, stronger in his spiritual life. It 
furnished him with material for his growth toward 
that greatness which he here ascribed to God. 

But as an observer of nature David had discovered 
the gentleness of God. 

And here his opportunities had been abundant and 
his qualifications were admirable. From boyhood he 
was nature's playmate and shared her secrets. The 
thunder that crashed overhead had no terror for him ; 
the voices that often blanch the cheek did not quicken 
the healthy beating of his pulse ; day and night aUke 
he had watched the heavens and earth, had cooled his 
cheek against the mountain breeze, and refreshed his 
body in the cool streams, and warmed himself into a 
glow in contest with the beasts of prey. He had slept 
on the mountain tops and in the valley and in the 
solemn cave. The voices of the night were f amihar to 
him as the music of the day. His ears had caught the 
early warble of the bird and learned to trace the grow- 
ing love and family affection in the changing tones of 
bird and beast as the seasons grew. He knew the 
odors of the fragrant woods and had made his camp 
in healthful spots that rival Adirondack forest or the 
woods of Maine. 

He was not ignorant of the life that sported in the 
waters, but had doubtless many a time satisfied liis 
hunger with the fruits of his rod and Hne. Nor could 



160 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

he fail to observe, for he had a poet's soul, the beauty 
of the gleaming fish as the sunlight brought the irides- 
cence of its scaly sides. He knew the flora of that 
region and had satisfied his soul in brilHant hues and 
had plucked the dainty petals from many a woodland 
flower. His eye had watched the lines of beauty in 
the body of the deer, and had seen his glowing eye-ball 
dilate as with bounding leap he cleared the underbrush 
and, panting, sought the water brooks in days of heat. 
Lambs he had carried in his arms and loved as gentle 
friends. Mountains he had climbed, grand and ma- 
jestic, with dashing fall, and bald and rocky crown, 
the home of birds that started with their wild and 
piercing cry as he drew near. In cool refreshing glens, 
piled with rock, moist with the spray of falling waters, 
murmuring their sweet inimitable monotones, broken 
now and then by the sharp cry of startled bird, he had 
walked and lived. 

The moods of nature he well knew, and she had been 
kind to him, sheltering him in her caves from pursuing 
enemies, refreshing him with her hquid treasures and 
supplying him with munificent hand with all her boun- 
ties for the welfare of his body and the building of his 
home. She had grown luxuries for his table, woods 
for his palace and given up her gold and silver for 
his dehght and use. Her rocks and woods and fields 
and streams, her skies with flashing stars and orbs of 
splendid power, her hills snow-crowned, rock-ribbed, 
bearing lightly on their shoulders the bending heavens 



THE DIVINE MINISTRY 161 

that laved to rest with maiden fondness there — all 
made their appeal and taught their lesson to David's 
soul. And not in vain. For his was soul to answer 
back to every word she spoke. He was not coy, but 
frank with nature's wooing and did his part. He had 
a poet's soul that thrilled and throbbed with rich emo- 
tion in the daily converse with this minister of God. 

O you, who yearly pay your visit to the court of 
this supernal queen, and lay your hand in hers and 
rest in her sylvan palaces, tell me, do you behold but 
grass and leaves and woody fibre and the brown earth 
and the cold rock and the feathery cloud, the voice of 
bird, the plunge of forest stream, the kiss of neigh- 
boring trees, the strange weird contact of the pine 
needles, the dip from lofty trees? Does the horse give 
you but a neigh, the cow her evening low, and every 
voiceful creature but her wonted noise? Or is there 
over all, in all, and sweetly but with mighty potency 
breathed thro' all, the voice of the Great Father com- 
muning with your soul, teaching of his divine gentle- 
ness? The soul is often hushed beyond the power of 
words when only the home of the bird, with its soft and 
downy bed, safe hid in crook of arching tree or in the 
dense foliage of some tangled bush, suddenly con- 
fronts the searching eye and tells of that benign 
power that in creating so tiny a thing did not for- 
get to tell it how to build its home in strength, in 
beauty and in safety. The poet soul of David, open 
ever to hear the Spirit's voice, discerned it in all of 



162 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

nature's harmony, and quick to see the meaning of 
Creator in the thing created read over and over the 
evidence of that gentleness in the divine nature that 
showed itself in all the marv^elous mechanism of the 
inanimate, in animate life and in the adaptations of 
the two. 

He saw the gentleness of God each morning of 
his shepherd life in the delicate change from night 
to day without a hint of violence, as he watched it 
from some mountain peak. He saw the glories of the 
upper world lavished on the orient skies and vanish- 
ing before the rising sun. And in the hush of his 
worshipping soul he heard angelic voices in praise of 
the divine tenderness that thus ministered to man, and 
he sent back the antiphonal response : "Thy gentleness 
hath made me great." 

While nature punishes with sharp and pain-inflict- 
ing hand the transgressor against her laws, she in- 
stantly seeks to heal the wound. How she pours her 
ointments into the gashed tree and barks its bleeding 
surface and bandages the wound, and on succeeding 
years covers it with bounteous foliage. How she 
turns from growth to heal a broken blade of grass. 
How even the body of man when wounded is aided 
to recovery by the recuperative energy in itself and 
in the store of healing remedies in the arcana which 
nature opens to her lovers. Is not the gentleness of 
God the teaching of nature? And David, as her will- 
ing child, her fond admirer, her constant student, 



THE DIVINE MINISTRY 163 

learned her teaching and felt that to the lesson he 
owed the growth of greatness in himself. 

David also discerned the gentleness of God in the 
divine heahng with him as an individual. 

Early in life he calls his God a shepherd. He 
knows the tenderness of a true shepherd's heart, the 
need of a gentle hand and loving voice and kind and 
sympathizing heart. And so conscious is he of these 
elements in God that he sings, ''The Lord is my shep- 
herd, I shall not want," and arguing the future from 
the necessary character of his God he prophesies of his 
life, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all 
the days of my life." 

A careful scrutiny of that Hfe in its multiform re- 
lations to the confederated state, the tribe of Judah, 
to Samuel, Saul, Jonathan, to his home, his warriors, 
his prayers, his repentance, his forgiveness, his hopes 
and wishes and disappointments, his toils, his op- 
portune arrivals for special blessings or work, his 
comfort in old age, his succeeding son, his departure 
— all justify the historian in declaring the proph- 
ecy true. He was not punished according to his 
deserts ; for his sins were laid upon another, and as 
he bowed in conscious guilt before God a gentle hand 
uplifted him ; wayward he was brought back ; tempted 
he was helped; slipping he was held, guarded, de- 
fended, saved, unsmitten when he dared the blow, 
healed when he had gaslicd his being, led in perilous 
moments even by the sound of a going in the tops of 



164 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

the mulberry trees ; the retrospect of his hf e compels 
the words of the text as the mature judgment on his 
life: "Thy gentleness hath made me great." He who 
could call in the thunder and shoot out the bghtning, 
make the mountains to smoke and the earth to tremble, 
command the battalions of the skies to move at his 
bidding, and at whose words archangels hastened to 
obey, yet regarded the sons of men and sought to 
relieve their sorrows, direct their paths, and save their 
sinful souls with touch as gentle as the morning hght 
that opens a sleeper's eyes. 

The relations of gentleness to greatness might oc- 
cupy our thoughts for awhile, were not the connection 
between the two so apparent as to render discussion 
needless. 

A continuous blow hardens the spot upon which 
it falls, or breaks asunder the object struck. Neglect 
of transgression spurs on the transgressor, but the 
gentle hand that administers wise love saves the soul 
by its effect upon the soul itself. In home administra- 
tion this principle is continually tested and proven. 
Harshness is not conducive to greatness in the char- 
acter of children ; sternness may secure obedience, but 
at the sacrifice of a well-rounded, great life. Great- 
ness is the child of gentleness, but gentleness is not 
careless indifference or indulgence. 

The nation that would secure greatness in her sub- 
jects and wards must show them the gentleness of 
her own greatness, the greatness of her own gentle- 



THE DIVINE MINISTRY 165 

ness. This is shown in a report from Hampton In- \ \ 

stitute where this law of gentleness prevails. "The 
rhetorical exercises of the afternoon were of unusual 
interest. The graduating class of thirty -five includes 
seven Indians, representing the Sioux, Seneca, Winne- 
bago, Pottawatomie and Sac and Fox tribes. The 
essays, breathing the spirit of self-reliance without 
self-assertion or self-conceit, of earnestness without 
assumption or complaint, were thrilling in their simple 
eloquence. The salutatory, delivered by a graceful 
Sioux maiden soon to' leave for her home in Montana, 
and there to start a school among her people, was a 
touching tale of past barbarism. It was followed by 
an interesting account of the opening of Oklahoma, 
by a young Indian eyewitness, whose spirit was in 
marked contrast to the bitterness of the border ranch- 
man. Colored boys and girls, speaking upon such sug- 
gestive themes as 'Our Progress,' ^Our Problems,' 
'Think and Labor,' 'Our Women's Work,' showed 
by composition and delivery the capacities of their 
race. Three recent colored graduates returned 
to tell of their work for their race in city and 
in country districts, with the earnest, practical 
ideas developed by experience. Tlie brilliant ad- 
dress by a young Portsmouth lawyer upon tJie 
^Negro's Experimental Period, and tlic Successful 
Accumulation of Property by Industry and Thrift,' 
was especially striking, and merits wide circuhi- 
tion." 



166 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

Is not this better than an account of an Indian war, 
or of negro atrocities ? 

The reign of divine gentleness has not ended. We 
are not studying a hopeless present in a blessed past. 
If David could sing of this element in the divine 
character, what shall be the burden of our song? 
Then the graphic pictures of Isaialrs prophecy had 
not been written — nor the pleading words, ''Ho, every- 
one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that 
hath no money, come ye buy and eat." The tender 
plaint of Jeremiah had not been uttered, nor the gra- 
cious call of Ezekiel. Then the Son of God had not 
been seen on earth in human form, nor had the blessed 
gospel of his grace been taught. Darid could not 
read the story of that hfe so full of heavenly gentle- 
ness, nor on his ears had fallen the gentle words: 
"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest." How has the story of the 
gentleness of God increased with the process of the 
suns.'^ What emphasis have the ages put upon it.^ 
How it swells with rhytlmiic fuUness as it moves from 
nation to nation ! What melody each life adds to it ! 
What a chorus of voices sing it : what an oratorio on 
the gentleness of God do the angels and the redeemed 
sing! And what is its effect upon you.^ 

All that was open to David, and a hundredfold 
more, presses upon you. The Lord is caUing you to 
greatness like his own by the gentleness of liis deal- 
ing with all, with j'ou. 



THE DIVINE MINISTRY 167 

Is he not merciful to-day? Is not the voice of aU 
his deahngs, "Rise, my son, to a ChristHke charac- 
ter"? In the tonic of holy influence do you not feel 
your soul strengthened for noble action ? 

I pray you, let the evidences of God's gentleness 
in your life and your station, this world and its 
spiritual government move you to an exalted character 
as you rise to imitation of the divine nature through 
the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. 



XII 

MOUNTAIN LESSONS 

"Thy righteousness is like the great mountains." — Psalm 36:6. 

The author of this simile is David, a constant 
reader of the two volumes of nature and revelation 
in which God has seen fit to disclose himself to the 
people of this world. He was not perplexed with any 
scientific difficulties, so-called, in the way of interpret- 
ing these volumes. They were ever in harmony be- 
cause both came from the same source. His mind was 
not entangled in the network of secondary causes. 
All things were the result of the divine activity. So 
he sang with happy spirit : 

"The sea is his for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. 
He made the stars also. He covereth the heaven with clouds. 
He prepareth rain for the earth. He maketh grass to grow upon 
the mountains." 

Every tree and shrub and flower — each change in 
all the world was to him the immediate result of the 
divine act. 

The volume of nature was the larger book of the 
two in his hands. The story of creation, the law, 

168 



MOUNTAIN LESSONS 169 

and a little history was the sum of the one — ^the air 
and earth and sky and all they contained was the 
other. From a child he was accustomed to read the 
open book of nature and catch its inspirations. He 
was a reverent student of all her phases. Her voices 
were the voices of God — commanding, entreating, per- 
suading. Her wonders were a part of the secrets of 
the Jehovah who* was above the man he had created ; 
her storms, her mighty tempests, with terrific exhibit 
of power, were only a declaration of the divine energy. 
Her green pastures and still waters were the type 
of provision for all the sons of men. The young 
raven's cry was heard, the sparrow was provided a 
shelter, and over every living thing was careful per- 
sonal superintendence. With such a spirit a life spent 
largely out of doors would become spiritual and find 
constant occasion to worship. The habit of drawing 
the spiritual lesson from every noticeable incident 
would be easily and firmly fixed. The mountains, ever 
grand and suggestive to thoughtful minds, would be 
especially impressive to' such a one, and it was nat- 
ural, therefore, that they should enter largely into 
his poetic and devotional composition. 

In writing this Psalm the thought of the wicked- 
ness of an evil man brought out into the prominence 
of the goodness of the Lord and the sublime things 
of nature furnish a means of comparison to Ins lalx^r- 
ing thoiight. "Thy mercy, Jeliovah, reaclieth to the 
heavens. Thy faithfulness unto the skies ; Thy right- 



170 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

eousness is like the great mountains. Thy judgments 
are a great deep." As he penned these words some 
lofty summit may have risen above him, some solid, 
majestic mountain may have been his abiding place. 
The whole region was mountainous, rising to the icy 
crown of Hermon that sentineled with ever-flashing 
bayonet of ice the northern border of the land. Huge 
masses of clouds may have trailed along their sum- 
mits like hurrying bands of white-winged angels ; 
the fruitful streams may have gleamed along their 
sides ; the cedars tossed by the blasts may have sent 
their odors forth to refresh him; the flashing lime- 
stone may have disclosed itself in spots, telling of 
their solidity, and the goodness of God could have 
to him no more vast and incomprehensible a symbol 
than the upheaved earth that pierced the very sky. 
The comparison was not a superficial nor fleeting one. 
He carried it into his thoughtful hours, and the full- 
ness of the simile satisfied him. Others have studied 
it and found it true. I have taken it into the moun- 
tains, and found that in these latest years it is full 
of wisdom. 

The word that is rendered righteousness might 
equally have been translated goodness, mercy, grace. 
The root word means "to be zealous toward any one." 
The primary idea is an eager and earnest desire by 
which one is actuated, and it means the zeal of God 
towards men. 

Sometimes it is said that the goodness of God is 



MOUNTAIN LESSONS 171 

obscured. So is a mountain summit by a cloud, but 
the lofty peak is not altered by the cloud, least of 
all is it removed, and the Psalmist intended to say 
that the divine goodness was like the great mountain. 

The great mountain is in the Hebrew tongue "The 
Mountains of God," those mighty masses that he 
himself has thrown up, coming from him as really as 
the goodness, and showing by their greatness and all 
their suggestiveness his glory and power. 

Luther was wont to suggest their firmness and im- 
movableness ; Stier, the safety of those who seek ref- 
uge in them ; others, their greatness and height. 

I propose now to give some of the points of the 
comparison of God's goodness to' the great mountains 
that seem to justify it to- my mind: 

1. The mountains are firm-based and solid-hearted. 
This is disclosed to every observer. If they were but 
pivoted on slender foundations, rising like inverted 
pyramids, the whole region about them would be full 
of danger. Terrible calamities would ensue when cy- 
clones swept them over. We should not seek them 
as places of summer rest and refreshment. If tliey 
were hollow, it would be unsafe to trust one's self on 
their sides or summits lest some commotion sliould 
suddenly cause the collapse of the whole, as the cnnn- 
bhng of the charred coal breaks in tlie surface clods 
of a coal pit, as the crashing of pillars fills in a 
subterranean cave; even the mountain whose heaii: is 
burning lava is destructive. The mountains that rose 



172 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

before the eye of David were of broad base, stretching 
out in vast uplands in the land of Ephraim, and the 
solid rock of which they were composed showed itself 
in many places. Caves were found here and there, 
but they did not weaken the strength of the hills. 

So the goodness of God to man is broad-based and 
solid-hearted. It is not fickle. It does not rest on 
sentiment ; it is not a peculiar exhibit of the divine 
nature, but rises in sublimity out of all the broad 
plains of an infinite being. It does not pivot on man's 
goodness, for then the storms of man's passion would 
topple it — the fall of man would destroy it. It is the 
uplift of wisdom, knowledge, justice, truth. The 
goodness of God to man is not hollow ; when examined 
and penetrated it is still good to the last analysis. Its 
interior is not burning hate or consuming greed, but 
that which lies out of sight and is undis cover able in 
the activities of God is still hke the mountain, soHd 
with goodness. 

2. The mountains are unchangeable. Trees, 
shrubs, cities, villages, men change, but the moun- 
tains abide the same. Their foliage may have the 
hue of spring or the gay autumnal colors ; they may 
be wooded or denuded of their forests, but their grand 
outlines are the same. Men may blast their rocks 
and excavate and bear away their treasure, but still 
in serene consciousness of their endurance they look 
unmoved. You may gaze upon the same summits that 
met the eye of David, and as you go from time to 



MOUNTAIN LESSONS 173 

time to familiar lofty spots they smile upon you with 
their friendly face unchanged. And so they type the 
goodness of God. The kindly acts of man are in- 
termitted. Faces grow stem that once were gentle in 
their looks, hands smite that once were stretched for 
loving embrace. 

God's goodness is unchangeable — moons wax and 
wane, seasons come and go, the long centuries pass in 
unbroken succession and still there is no' change. The 
flow of love seems eternal. Gift is added to gift. 
If the promise of pardon for sin in type is given to 
one generation, the personal Christ is given to an- 
other, the ever-present Spirit with increasing revela- 
tions to another, and people in every land, in every age 
prolong the song, "Surely, goodness and mercy shall 
follow me all the days of my life." 

3. The mountains are self-evident. They do not 
need to be labeled. No- crier need be stationed on their 
side or summit with Gabriel's trumpet to declare their 
presence. They confront the eye that opens — they 
stand in the way of the passer-by. Swept by a storm, 
or in the full blaze of sunlight, or throwing their 
sombre shade at night, their mighty bulk declares 
them ever- there. The Matterhorn, noblest of Alpine 
peaks, Mont Blanc, the Himalayas, the Sierras — who 
shall stand and say, "Lo, these are mountains !" Who 
shall rise with puny form in their presence to argue 
with a traveler presenting proof that these are moun- 
tains ? 



174 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

The goodness of God is likewise self-evident. A 
blind man may say, "I do not see a mountain," and 
he shall speak the truth, but lead him on, and he shall 
soon add: "We are climbing up a height." God's 
goodness needs proof to the bhnd alone, and they 
must know it as their years go on and their lives go 
up. Long chains with lofty peaks declare without 
a word of man that he who is above us all is infinitely 
good. What fool is he who, made supremely diminu- 
tive amid the colossal e^ddences of the divine grace 
to man, asks for or offers proof that God is good.^^ 

4. The mountain altitudes cannot be estimated but 
by careful measurement. The ordinar\^ standard by 
which distance is determined is found inadequate when 
applied here. The guess that may have some degree 
of accuracy elsewhere is worthless here ; the measur- 
ing rod cannot be applied, each foot of ground can- 
not be traversed. Those higher methods and better 
instruments must be used, invohdng careful obser\'a- 
tion and equally careful calculation. So of the 
righteousness of God. The small measure by which 
we take account of one another, unable to bring into 
the calculation motive and intent, the system of com- 
putation by which we measure so much goodness by 
so much benefit received, utterly fails when applied to 
the divine. A plan of heavenly mathematics must be 
found, hinted at in some of the works of God, 
when five loaves and two small fishes feed about five 
thousand men and leave twelve baskets full of frag- 



MOUNTAIN LESSONS 175 

merits. This is not ordinary computation. The vast 
extent of the divine goodness can no more be reckoned 
according to the ordinary philosophy of man than the 
altitude of Mount Washington can be obtained by a 
tape measure or than the extent of the Rocky Moun- 
tains can be found with a yard stick. 

5. The great mountains are awe-inspiring. A sen- 
sitive soul is stilled as he stands in the presence of the 
mighty monarchs. All worshipful feelings are stirred, 
frivoHty is checked, and the impression of power and 
grandeur moves the soul. High places were early 
chosen for spots of worship. The lofty summits 
piercing the clouds or crowned with splendor when 
all else is darkened, immovable as the earth itself, 
without voice to tell their wonders, yet by their silent 
grandeur inviting and alluring thousands to their 
presence, the home of countless birds and beasts, upon 
whose lofty crags the eagle whets her beak, whence 
comes the roaring fall, where the lightnings strike and 
the thunder-peals repeat themselves in long reduplica- 
tions of majestic tones, their age, their origins un- 
known, their wonders undiscovered, ice-crowned, snow- 
covered, with the creeping glacier between — all move 
the soul to awe. 

So is there sublimity in the active goodness of God. 
As it towers above the mortal and angcHc bcnevolonce, 
as it expresses itself in forms of provision, protec- 
tion and guidance, as it shadows the individual and 
encompasses the nation, as it reaches to marvelous be- 



176 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

stowments of life etenial toi the unworthy in Jesus 
Christ, as it stoops in him to the lowest and rises with 
its burden to the plain of everlasting blessedness, the 
soul is filled with awe and marvels what it beholds. 
No wonder the angels desire to look into' the mysteries 
of incarnation and man's redemption. It is the awe- 
inspiring exhibit of God's goodness. The unmoved 
soul is unworthy of the grace that might add glory to 
his life. 

6. The mountains are difficult of ascent. Many 
never climb them because of the needed eff*ort. The 
sluggard neglects their glories ; the indolent fail of 
their treasures. A precipitous front meets him whoi 
would ascend, sharp-edged rocks try his strength, 
tangled thickets and shaded forests are in his path. 
So out of a worldly life it is difficult to' rise into the 
goodness of God. It is not level to' man. God's 
thoughts are higher than ours. His ways lie above 
us, and to climb to the altitude of his thoughts, so 
that they become ours, to walk along his ways and find 
a harmony of spirit with him and a satisfaction in 
all he does, whether it lays our plans in the dust or 
not, requires effort from a weakling man. Even toi 
understand that "God so loved the world that he gave 
his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in 
him should not perish, but have everlasting life" sur- 
passes the power of many souls. They stumble, they 
grow weary in effort to conceive the height of God's 
great love. 



MOUNTAIN LESSONS 177 

7. The mountains are regulative of much. They 
stay the progress of clouds and form rivulets that 
swell to mighty rivers. Their position makes deserts 
and fertile plains. On their sides rise the springs that 
feed the valleys. They temper the heat, they increase 
the cold; they form barriers between nations, they 
prevent the shedding of blood. In nature, and among 
peoples, the mountains play a regulative part. 

And so does the goodness of God regulate the 
affairs of time and eternity. It tempers the opera- 
tion of a bad justice; it makes life blessed and desir- 
able here and* hereafter ; it turns aside destructive 
forces ; it modifies the operations of hostile agents. 
Omit from the calculations of life all estimate of the 
divine grace, the zeal of God towards us, and how 
changed is all. No mountain chain determining the 
character of the country from which it rises can fail 
to suggest the regulative power of God's righteous- 
ness. 

8. The mountains are destructive of petty meas- 
urements and local strifes. 

It is sad that mountaineers do sometimes dispute 
about their border lines, but as they rise to loftier 
summits, all their wrangling seems strangely out of 
place. From mountain-tops any division line seems 
absurd. The eye owns all that it can sweep, and with 
miles of territory before it, how petty seems a con- 
test for a few square rods. Rising on God's good- 
ness the measurement of one another, of religious 



178 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

sects, as well as the strifes of men and parties, seem 
debasing. The divine goodness extends to all, breaks 
over every narrow boundary, furnishes untold stores 
for every hving being, minifies all narrowness and, 
like the great mountain stretches through the lands 
of various peoples and up above the possession of any, 
it makes dogmatism ridiculous, and the claim of any 
sect to hold all truth as absurd. Who owns the ice 
that never melts on unreached hills .^^ 

"There's a wideness in God's mercy, 
Like the wildness of the sea; 
There's a kindness in His justice 
That is more than Hberty." 

9. The mountains are full of sublimities and po- 
etry. Their grandeur has never yet been exhausted. 
Poets of every land have filled their verse in praise 
of all their greatness ; rhetoricians have made their 
speech powerful and graceful from the mountain 
figures, and still they are fresh and new and wonder- 
ful. ]\Ian climbs their rugged sides and, trembHng 
with excitement, beholds the mountain torrent leaping 
like flame at white heat from dizzy heights, the land- 
scape stretcliing away like an emerald flood inlaid 
with precious stones, the clouds above the head or be- 
neath the feet, or sailing far away Like great aerial 
chariots with unseen steeds and hidden occupants, and 
descends to count all other scenes as tame and com- 
monplace. So does God's goodness impress the soul* 



MOUNTAIN LESSONS 179 

'Tis full of poetry and sublimity. Its expression is 
like an angel's smile; its far-reaching influence, its 
never-failing richness, its marvelous adaptation to 
every varying need, its unfathomable fullness, its 
tenderness, its glory, all have moved to noblest ex- 
pression through fifty centuries, and still the volume 
of praise swells and rolls on. Aught that suggests the 
sublime recalls the divine grace. 

10. Mountains hide their secrets from the indolent 
and absent. 

Those who dwell at their base may never know the 
treasures on their sides and summits. It is only as 
they are searched that their secrets are known, only 
as they are climbed that the outlook is obtained, only 
as they are visited that their beauty is discovered. 
No mountain fairy points the way to spots of enchant- 
ment, no Druid tells of hidden blessings, no' loud- 
tongued messenger is sent to proclaim the special rich- 
ness of the glorious slopes. And thus they type the 
righteousness of God. To many it has no beauty 
and no worth. They see harshness and injustice, in- 
equality and cruelty in God's ways. Viewed from 
afar, unstudied, they do' seem passing strange at 
times. But to the searcher they disclose their secrets. 
Plans of blessedness lie under thorny brush, and the 
golden glories of precious truth become the wealth 
of those who seek to find. No one may expect to know 
the secrets of God avIio never comes in close and inti- 
mate communion with him. 



180 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

11. The mountains rise above the clamor of the 
world. 

In their stillness the soul finds rest, the body re- 
freshment. The constant din of the hurrying world, 
the hum of restless life, cannot reach far up the steep 
sides. All the world is not disturbed with the rattle 
of its strife and the groans of its pain. The j argon 
of Babel is hushed. Afar up the tree growth there 
is not even the murmur of foliage. 

God's goodness is like this. It is not swayed by 
the demands of men ; it is seen like the still heights 
far above the pushing, noisy boast of human good- 
ness. Climbing upon it in meditation, we rise above 
the fretful cries of our own surroundings, and feel a 
quietude that robs us of all anxiety and pain. There 
is no babbling in God's goodness. His activities, like 
the movements of the stars, are still and mighty. 

12. Attack upon the mountains does not demolish 
them. They are ruined who dash themselves upon 
their rocky ribs. Battles may be fought upon their 
sides, but they remain. Shells may be discharged 
against them, but their explosion is harmless. 

So God's goodness is indestructible. Men doubt 
it, deny it, combat it, but it remains good. Men 
wrangle over it ; they perish, but the goodness remains. 
"As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the 
Lord is round about his people from henceforth ever 
forever," for his goodness, hke the mountains, can- 
not be demolished by attack. 



MOUNTAIN LESSONS 181 

13. Mountains are often storehouses of precious 
metals, jewels and valuable stones. 

Is not God's goodness full of the sparkling gems 
that when transferred to man become his noblest treas- 
ures? Have not quarries been opened and worked for 
the adornment of the human race.? What has been a 
more prolific source of gems and glittering glories 
than the grace of God? 

14. Mountains are often lighted with glory when 
all else is dark. 

I looked at a long line of peaks, each one a blaze 
of glory, bathed in a brightness that came from a 
loftier point still, while all the valleys were filled with 
darkness, where sombre night seemed to- have asserted 
herself, and I said toi myself, "Surely, the goodness 
of God is like the great mountains in that it is lumin- 
ous with glory when clouds and darkness obscure all 
else." 

15. The mountains are places of safety. "Escape 
to the mountains lest thou be consumed" has been a 
common cry. How often have they sheltered the ex- 
posed, protected the defenceless, put their mighty 
arms about the weak and made them as the strong! 
Many a thanksgiving has gone above the loftiest peak 
and entered into the ears of him whom angels praise 
for the safety of the protecting hills. 

So is the goodness of God a place of safety for the 
anxious, the attacked, the pursued sons of men. Ex- 
posed on the plain, smarting with the wounds of a 



182 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

fierce foe, hunted by sins of a past life, the goodness 
of God opens to receive and shelter the soul. None 
suffer who make this their refuge. It is ample enough 
for all the human race. As a nation may find safety 
in its mountain fastnesses, so the world may be saved 
in the grace of God. The wearing of a fretful spirit, 
the wasting of a sorrowing soul, the plundering of an 
anxious mind may all be escaped by flight to the good- 
ness of God. "I have loved thee with an everlasting 
love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn 
thee" is the Lord's own word. 

The invitation that calls to God is an invitation of 
safety. Many a time David found refuge in the 
mountains — oftener yet in the Lord his God. And to 
us, again thinking of the richness of this comparison, 
comes a still small voice rising at length to the strength 
of a mountain blast calling, persuading, entreating us 
to make the Lord our refuge, and in the mountainous 
glory of his goodness to seek our everlasting safety 
and our eternal well-being; for while time shall last 
this truth will remain, that "the righteousness of God 
is like the great mountains." 



XIII 

THE FRATERNAL GREETING 

"I am Joseph." — Genesis 45:3. 

There are many impressive scenes recorded in the 
Scriptures, but none more tenderly attractive than 
that in connection with which these words were spoken. 
It is as emphatic in its detail as in its broadest 
outline. 

The character of Joseph is ever winsome, but we 
catch sight of its inner beauties in this disclosure of 
himself to his brethren. 

There was such opportunity for the exercise of 

those elements of character that mark the majority 

of the human race, there was such ground for the 

indulgence of that disposition to reassert the defeated 

but now successful declarations of early da}^*, that at 

least a partial indulgence would have been condoned 

by most men in reading his history. If Joseph had 

held his brethren from him until he had made them 

feel the might of his power, had compelled them to 

fall down before him in humblest entreaties for his 

favor until the old dream of bending sheaves had been 

183 



184 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

recalled and their early words of condemnation burned 
into their souls — if he had impressed upon them his 
importance as chief i-uler in the great land whose well- 
filled granaries were the hope of starving thousands, 
and thus shown them that the coat of many colors 
early worn was only a hint of the royal robes that 
now adorned his person — if he had in the presence of 
Pharaoh and his court in the most princely manner, 
with flourish of trumpets and august and abundant 
ceremony, declared himself, all the world would haye 
applauded his clemency in sparing any deserved pun- 
ishment, and rejoiced in liis opportunity to turn the 
tables upon these enyious and wicked brethren of his 
childliood days. 

If the idea of many people concerning the Old 
Testament is true, he should haye cast them into 
prison, and with terrible words of condemnation 
brought them forth to hew them in pieces with the 
battle-axe of his wrath. They should haye been made 
to feel the righteous outpouring of his long-afflicted 
spirit, and by the operation of the law of eye for eye 
and tooth for tooth, been themselyes sold into bondage 
and made to serve the rest of their days in the yery 
presence of him whose dreams they mocked, whose 
body they maltreated, whom they sold into Egypt. 

But this narratiye would not be out of place among 
the sweetest teachings of Jesus Christ. If it had been 
a parable from his lips it would haye been pronounced 
an inimitable illustration of the supreme gift of love 



THE FRATERNAL GREETING 185 

and forbearance inculcated in the New Testa- 
ment; and yet it is found afar back in primeval 
days, and shows that God's character is the same in 
all ages. 

We do not propose here to present a graphic pic- 
ture of the scene itself that is so familiar, but to note 
the salient points of Joseph's revelation, and see how 
richl}'- they suggest the character of Christ's revela- 
tion of himself to us. 

Let us recall the mutual relations of Joseph and 
his brethren. 

Joseph was in power. He was the governor over 
the land. Pharaoh had said to him: "Thou shalt be 
over my house, and according unto thy word shall 
all my people be ruled; only in the throne will I be 
greater than thou." The ring of Pharaoh was on 
his hand, he was arrayed in vestures of fine linen, with 
a gold chain about his neck. He rode in the second 
chariot, and they cried before him, "Bow the knee," 
and the king made him ruler over all the land of 
Egypt. He was recognized as next in authority to 
the king. His word was law. He had not to ask 
favors, but to command service. His brethren were 
without power of any kind. They had not risen to 
eminence in their own land ; they were not rulers of 
any people ; they do not seem to have distinguished 
themselves in any way. Their presence in this foreign 
land increased their lielplcssness. They were not rep- 
resentatives of their home authority, but were here on 



186 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

business of their own, having nO' power even over their 
own Hves and liberty. 

Joseph was in the midst of plenty. The seven years 
of abundance had filled the granaries under his con- 
trol, so that there was enough and to spare ; his table 
was spread with every luxury, and there was no- pos- 
sibility of an unsatisfied desire; the fatness of the 
land had yielded itself to his call, and with utmost 
prodigality there would still be enough and to spare ; 
riches were flowing in now from the attempts of the 
people to supply their pressing needs. The brethren 
were in want. Hunger had driven them from their 
own land ; the starvation and death that stared them 
in the face alone induced them to* come to Egypt; 
they were suffering in their condition of want; un- 
less provided for in this kindly way by this eminent 
ruler their days were numbered, and so they bowed 
themselves before him with their faces to the earth. 
Their money was of little worth, if it could not buy 
com ; their lands were perfectly unproductive. Jacob 
had said to» them, "Get you down into- Egypt and 
buy for us from thence that we may live and not die." 
Their want was emphasized by the extent and dreari- 
ness and prolongation of the famine. 

Joseph recognized his brethren and remembered his 
dreams. Their familiar features told many a story 
of his boyhood; their names recalled all their com- 
mon life; their voices refreshed again their hostility 
to him, their rebukes, their jests at his expense, their 



THE FRATERNAL GREETING 187 

wrangling, their heated condemnation, their scoffing 
at his dreams, their discussion over his sale. Their 
presence brought again to mind the hours of their last 
meeting, when they seized upon him, took his coat, 
the father's gift, and treated him rudely, saying. "We 
will see what will become of his dreams." He sees his 
father's looks in the faces of some and yearns over 
Benjamin, his own brother, as he sees his mother's 
tender look, and his heart overflows until he is com- 
pelled to withdraw and weep alone. 

But the brethren do not recognize him. They seem 
to have recalled their fault concerning him, and to 
trace their difficulties in Egypt to their sale of him. 
Doubtless the journey has brought him to mind, and 
they perchance conversed by the way of his where- 
abouts. The presence of Ishmaelites seeking food may 
have quickened their thoughts, and a similar band to 
that to which they sold Joseph may have called him 
specially to mind. He was often in their father's 
thoughts, as appears from his mention of him as they 
brought Benjamin away; but as they stood in his 
presence they had no thought that the ruler was he. 
He was then about forty years of age, and tlie lan- 
guage which he used, speaking to them tlirougli an 
interpreter, his full beard and clotliing, doubtless so 
obscured his personality, that in the absence of any 
expectation of seeing him in sucli state, tliey preventeil 
his recognition. 

Joseph was at peace with liimself. He was con- 



188 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

scious of a pure and orderly life. No Egyptian wor- 
ship had drawn him away from the God of his 
fathers. His noble life had borne its fruits in his 
exaltation. The false charge against him, resulting 
in his imprisonment, had introduced him to the notice 
of Pharaoh and so secured his success and prominence. 
All things had worked together for good. We do 
not know why he had not communicated with his home 
during the seven years of plenty, during which he 
had been in power. He could not have forgotten his 
father nor Benjamin, even if his heart had been 
steeled against his brethren, and possibly he may have 
made ineffectual efforts to hear from them. His of- 
ficial duties doubtless prevented a journey home. 

But the brethren were full of self -accusation ; they 
were troubled at their sin ; their misfortunes in this 
strange land they connected with their wrongdoing. 
Doubtless they had sinned in many ways, since their 
wicked act of selling Joseph, yet their minds revert 
to that great sin as they say to one another, "We 
are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we 
saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us and 
we would not hear, therefore is this distress come upon 
us." And Reuben answered them, saying, "Spake I 
not unto you, saying, ^Do not sin against the child,' 
and ye would not hear.? Therefore, behold, also his 
blood is required.'' 

They had, no doubt, many times discussed this ques- 
tion at home, in the field and by the way, but now they 



THE FRATERNAL GREETING 189 

discussed the question among themselves in the very- 
presence of Joseph himself, who "turned himself about 
from them and wept." 

With these mutual relations in mind it is interesting 
to note the character of Joseph's revelation of him- 
self to them. 

1. It was in retirement. 

Had he wished to impress them with his greatness, 
he would have summoned all the courtiers, even the 
king himself, and then, in a solemn manner, to their 
terror and amazement, announced himself. Had he 
wished to increase their discomfiture he would certainly 
have had an open, public disclosure of himself. It 
might have contributed tO' his renown among the 
Egyptians to see his brethren trembling in his pres- 
ence and suing for their lives before him. The ex- 
hibit of his clemency in view of their maltreatment 
which must have come out in a public manifestation 
of himself to them would have stirred the hearts of 
all and made him famous in his goodness as well as 
his greatness. Many a reason might have arisen 
in his mind for such a course, but he cried, "Cause 
every man to go out from me.'' And there stood no 
man with him while Joseph made himself known unto 
his brethren. No- eye should see their consternation ; 
no ear should hear their bitter self-condemnation ; no 
witness should carry the story of their greeting to 
strangers without. 

It was not to distress but to comfort them, not to 



190 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

wound but to heal them that he wished to declare him- 
Belf to them. What amazement must have been theirs 
as they saw the attendants leaving the apartment at 
the ruler's word ! What fear lest some strange word 
should be spoken to them! What wonder filled them 
as the interpreter himself departed, and with tearful 
eyes and profound emotion the ruler looked upon them 
and they caught the accents of their own tongue com- 
ing from his lips as he said, "I am Joseph; does my 
father yet live?" It was well that no foreign eye was 
upon them as the color came and went, their knees 
smote together, their heart sank within them and they 
waited for added words of confirmation and then bit- 
ter condemnation. This disclosure was not for the 
court to witness, for it was a brother's noble purpose 
to hide fraternal faults, and in its privacy we see the 
sublime traits of Joseph's character ; for it seems that 
he was compelled to repeat his assertion and then to 
bid them come near to him with words of entreaty, 
for they were silent, even terrified at his presence, 
till he soothed them and comforted them with gra- 
cious words. The infinite God looked down from 
Heaven with approval upon such an effort to' conceal 
a family difficulty, at such a hiding of noble gen- 
erosity, at such superb forgetfulness of self in 
thoughts of others' good. 

2. It was strongly emotional. 

Even now the story cannot be read without tears. 
They glisten in the eye of the child and fall down the 



THE FRATERNAL GREETING 191 

cheek of the aged. No one need be ashamed to" brush 
them away, for Joseph himself was entirely overcome. 
He wept aloud. Again and again in his interviews he 
had been compelled to^ stifle his rising emotion, but 
now in their presence he poured forth his whole heart 
and showed himself of the same tender spirit as when a 
lad, and between his sobs he told them of his power, 
bade them come to him and live, and "fell upon his 
brother Benjamin's neck and wept, and Benjamin 
wept upon his neck." 

There was no purpose on his part to' remain the 
stem official; he had nO' desire, though lord of the 
country, to be other than Joseph to his brethren, and 
as he now stood among them and was recognized and 
thought of seeing his father, his dear old father Ja- 
cob, his feelings were allowed their natural action, 
and he did not care to' repress them. The joy that 
swept through his soul as he looked into the eyes of 
Benjamin, the exquisite delight that filled him as he 
thought how God had sent him before them to preserve 
life, moved him to the very depths of his being, and 
so violent was his emotion that the Egyptians and 
the house of Pharaoh, heard. The repressed tender- 
ness of years poured forth befoTe those bewildered 
men. They could not doubt the genuineness of such 
emotion, and as gradually the familiar features began 
to come out in Joseph's face and their own wicked act 
rose in mind, they could only contrast his weeping 
and pleading as they sold him with his tears and plead- 



192 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

ing now, and marvel at the absence of all severity on 
his part. He would not have been blamed if he had 
lectured them on their inability to defeat the plans 
of God, the sure triumph of righteousness. If he 
had used the severe tones toward those who cast him 
in the pit, who cowered before him even now, it would 
not have been strange, but the entire loss of all se- 
verity and coldness in the natural and powerful emo- 
tion showed the triumph of the rich graces of his soul 
and declared him far above the average of his race 
and time. 

3. It was free from condemnation. 

If ever any man would be justified in speaking a 
condemnatory sentence it was Joseph. With all the 
guilt of the brethren in their minds and in his, with 
the evidence of their sin confronting them in his living 
person, with nothing to contradict and everything to 
support his vigorous testimony against them, yet not 
a word of condemnation escaped his Hps. He does 
not allude to their wrong, save to excuse it in the 
light of subsequent events and present disaster. He 
pours upon them the riches of his love, the tenderness 
of his fraternal greeting, the glad assurances of his 
warm and generous affection. If others condemn, he 
does not; if they condemn themselves he dechnes to 
add a single bitter word or f eehng ; if circumstances 
condemn them he wiU make effort to change the cir- 
cumstances. He does not fail to emphasize the rela- 
tionship between them as he announces to them the 



THE FRATERNAL GREETING 193 

truth, "I am Joseph, your brother." If they have 
feared lest at some time their sin should find them 
out and retribution overtake them, they are startled 
in the magnanimity of their brother's heart. Surely, 
if he does not condemn them, none other will; if he 
pardons, they are pardoned indeed. If he does not 
say "I told you so," their hearts may be freed from 
any thought or fear of rebuke. 

This absence of condemnation finds no superior in- 
stance in the history of the world, and the soul that 
has learned of Jesus Christ how to forgive may turn 
back to this narrative and learn how toi withhold con- 
demnation. Courage and hope rise in the hearts of 
these men. If they mocked at the thought of bowing 
down to Joseph when he was a boy, his present atti- 
tude toward them compels their admiration and almost 
draws out their adoration. They cannot believe the 
testimony of their senses ; they await still some pun- 
ishment, till, having assured them of all the love that 
was in his heart, he kissed them all and wept upon 
them again. His words were not "I am the avenger," 
but "I am Joseph," and pausing there, the clouds 
lifted from their troubled spirits and his benediction 
made them glad. This incident might have been nar- 
rated after Jesus' words to the sinner whom men would 
have stoned : "Hath no man condemned them, neither 
do I condemn thee; go in peace and sin no more," and 
all would have felt that the disciple was as the Master. 
The Master's spirit was given to Joseph in his youth. 



194. SPIRITUAL SANITY 

4. It was exceedingly simple. 

When we think of what he might have said, of 
what he probably should have said, of what perhaps 
we are hoping for an opportunity to say sometime 
to some brother or relative who has wronged us, we 
can scarcely trust the narrative. Why was there not 
coupled with his name some Egyptian epithet of 
power or greatness ? Why did he not say, "I am the 
second in rule in Egypt, but was once your brother 
Joseph"? Why did he not set his early relation to 
them in the midst of all that had since been added to it 
and now clustered about it? It was because he wished 
to redlice to the utmost simplicity the character of his 
revelation. If he had said, "I am your brother/' 
that would have left some doubt in their mind as to 
his attitude; but in the words "I am Joseph" he de- 
clared in the simplest form the permanence of the 
childish relation and gave them privilege once more 
to use the old word and to renew the old association. 
"I am that dreamer," he might have begun and so 
led them on through fear and expectancy to a knowl- 
edge of him, but instead he burst upon them as soon 
as they were by themselves with his simple words, ^'1 
am Joseph ; doth my father yet Kve ?" 

5. It was with excuses for the wrong done to him. 
When they trembled at the jfirst disclosure and could 

not answer him, but shrank away in terror as though 
he was about to smite them, he called them near to 
himself and began to explain the great value of their 



THE FRATERNAL GREETING 195 

act. "Be not grieved nor angry with yourselves that 
ye sold me hither ; for God did send me before you to 
preserve Hfe." How kindly he skips all mention of 
his years of trouble and imprisonment and servitude ! 
How he checks their rising thoughts of self-condemna- 
tion to which they are so wont to yield ! 

"God sent me before you to preserve you a pos- 
terity in the earth and to save your lives by a great 
dehverance. So now it was not you that sent me 
hither, but God. Haste ye and go up to my father 
and say unto him, 'Thus saith thy son Joseph: God 
hath made me lord of all Egypt ; come down unto me, 
tarry not,' " and doubtless in the talk that followed 
he removed all their pain and helped them into 
quietude of spirit again. If trouble was ever blessed 
to the sweetening of a disposition it was blessed to 
Joseph, and this disclosure of an excusing spirit puts 
to the blush much of the professed charity of Chris- 
tian believers. 

But this suggests to us most forcibly the revelation 
of Jesus Christ to us. 

We are conscious of the wrongdoing toward God, 
of a spirit in want and in self-condemnation. The 
contrast between Joseph and his brethren is deepened 
in the mutual relations between Christ and us, and 
when we meet him as the impersonated and revealed 
God to make known to us the will and speak the words 
of God we shrink from the condemnation which we 
know we deserve. But all the beauty of tliis picture 



il96 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

from the gallery of history shows dim in the glowing 
splendor of Christ's attitude towards us. 

To us he discloses himself as to the persecuting 
Saul, saying, "I am Jesus.'' It is the name given 
him because of its sacred meaning. "Thou shalt call 
his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their 
sins.'^ 

It is not in the public crowd, but in the retirement 
of the soul, in the privacy of its own meditations that 
the Lord appears "the man of sorrows and acquainted 
with grief 5 yet the chief among ten thousand, the one 
altogether lovely." 

With strong emotion does he make known his love ; 
his face is so "marred more than any and his form 
more than the sons of men." 

Gethsemane gave us tears of blood, and the cross 
reveals his mighty emotion. 

"I came not to condemn but to save," are his words. 
To every one he met he proffered blessings. How 
often did he declare that his work was to save, man's 
work was toi receive the blessing. 

"Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out." 
How profound is his affection for John, for Peter, 
for Mary, for all ! "Greater love hath no- man than 
this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." 
How simple his manifestation! No^ mighty declara- 
tions of exaltation, but the minister, the brother, the 
friend, the Saviour of all; and it was his love that 
gathered up all e:5^cuse§ and assumed the sin that was 



THE FRATERNAL GREETING 197 

in them, and bare them on his own body on the tree, 
furnishing for us into the paradise of plenty a free 
and blessed entrance. 

Surely, if we are moved by the gentleness and for- 
bearance of Joseph, we may yield our heart's tender- 
est affection, our spirit's devoutest service, to him 
who is our offended brother, but who comes to us with 
words of holy love and promise, saying to our ques- 
tions of doubt, "Whoi art thou, Lord?" the simple, 
blessed words, "I am Jesus.'' 




XIV 
THE EASTER MESSAGE 

**Rabboni; which is to say, Master." — John 20:16. 

There is one word appropriate to every lip on 
the day that recalls the resurrection of Christ. It is 
the word of Mary's utterance at the disclosure of the 
character of him with whom she talked supposing him 
to be the gardener. Surprise mingled with honest 
servitude of soul prompted the word of worshipful 
attachment, ^'RabbonL'' 

The Lord Jesus had indeed claimed to be Master 
during the months, the three brief years of his public 
life, and many had acknowledged the claim. Noble 
and lowly had ahke yielded to his Lordship, followed 
him in loving discipleship. 

The evidence of his right to their fidelity in ser- 
vice had been constantly manifested. His authority 
had been recognized by obedient spirits as they fled 
from their possession of human souls, by wind and 
by wave, by disease and by death. Heaven had spoken 
its words of commendation and death had replied in 
loud Amen. Angels had sung so loud that watching 

198 



THE EASTER MESSAGE 199 

shepherds heard the strain and the whole Hfe had 
given powerful testimony to the correctness of his 
claim. 

"I am your Lord and Master/' he said. His words 
had been spoken with authority, and the listening 
people noted that he spoke not as the scribes. His 
commands were to follow him. His declarations were 
that he would save them from their sins. His promises 
were of comfort in sorrow, hope in despair, dehver- 
ance from peril, glory in eternal security. While 
there were marks of weakness in him like those that 
distinguish humanity, while he wept and hungered, 
and sorrowed, and grew weary, and was lonely, and 
prayed; while he spoke of death, his own departure 
by violence, there was so much exercise of power su- 
perior to all these evils that the impression on every 
mind was that he could overcome them if he would. 
This claim of mastership had been lovingly yielded 
by his disciples. He was grander than the Caesars, 
he was wiser than the Rabbins, he was nobler than 
the philosophers. No disputant dared ask him any 
further questions when he once gave comprehensive 
answer. Kings could not subdue him, crowds followed 
him, and the land was full of the thanksgivings of 
healed and much blessed people. Hermon flashed the 
story of his blessed work from its icy crown, Ebal 
and Gerizim forgot their ancient echoes to tell a new 
story, Jordan rippled on its banks with frcsli ca- 
dences of divine goodness, and even into Edom went 



200 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

the breezes laden with the tidings of a loving- and 
helpful Lord m Israel. Perea beyond Jordan had 
seen the hillside gathering and the mighty supply of 
food, but found no crumbs when the host withdrew 
and Decapolis had a preacher, once the maniac of 
their tombs. 

Power marvelous and glorious had by its constant 
display in the interests of man compelled all to own 
him a Master among men. But the tragedy had come 
and the Master had succumbed. Power superior to 
his had at length been exercised and he had hung 
among malefactors, and groaned in his agony, ap- 
pealed without apparent result to God, been mocked 
by rude people and Roman soldiers, been pierced to the 
heart, died on the cross, and, like any other mortal, 
placed in the tomb to be resolved to dust again. For 
portions of three days he had lain there, and his dis- 
ciples had wandered like forlorn and disconsolate 
people, with difficulty taking up the burden of life 
again. The Master had failed them. He was not 
Master after all. The great conqueror had conquered 
him, and death was master still. The reassertion of 
power was necessary to estabhsh the mastership of 
Christ. Won in his life, it was lost in his death; it 
could be regained only by his resurrection, and it 
was fitting that at his first appearance as the risen 
Lord, the first word of discipleship addressed to him 
should be that which Mary used and wliich put again 
at his feet in adoring worship all the love and all the 



THE EASTER MESSAGE 201 

service of his baffled and distressed disciples. More 
than ever and now forever he was to them and to all 
who should believe on him, Rabboni; which is to' say- 
Master. 

Upon the New Testament records alone we rely for 
the account of the resurrection of our Lord. Their 
genuineness and credibility proven, we are compelled 
to believe the fact of resurrection as we accept any 
historic fact, and no fact of gospel history rests upon 
a firmer basis. 

On ten different occasions Jesus appeared to his 
disciples. He satisfied any doubts which remained in 
their minds respecting the character of his body by 
eating and drinking with them, and to Thomas he 
gave clearest proof of his identity by physical contact 
with the wounds in hand and side. Their doubts gave 
place to strongest belief which nothing could shake. 
His mastership was firmly re-established in their souls 
as in the soul of Mary at the morning meeting in the 
garden. They proclaimed the fact everywhere in Je- 
misalem, before those who tried and convicted him, 
and had seen their temporary lapse of faith and dis- 
comfort of spirit. The shams which were invented 
to screen the hate of the infuriated priesthood were 
so transparent as at once to lose credence. Oral error 
on the disciples' part would be quickly corrected. No 
strong historical objection lias ever stood against tlie 
fact of Christ's resurrection. "No one ever ventured 
seriously to question the fact at tl^it time." Vaiious 



202 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

theories have been advanced concerning the nature of 
the resurrection, but the fact underUes them aU. It 
is of grandest moment in the Christian scheme, for 
if doubt rested upon this the whole fabric would be 
weak, man's faith could not support it; it would be 
in ruins. The apostles regarded it as of prime im- 
portance, gave marked prominence to it and thus in 
earliest times Christ was evidently set forth as cruci- 
fied and raised from the dead. It was Christ and his 
resurrection that Paul preached as the ground of the 
mastership of the Lord, declaring that if Christ be 
not risen, we can have no hope of resurrection, and 
our faith is baseless, preaching becomes vain; and 
through the ages the belief in this fact has grown 
stronger and stronger. If at times men have ques- 
tioned it, it has only served to give greater prominence 
to the historic strength of the truth ; if they have de- 
nied the statements of the apostles it has only served 
to call out new study, which has thrown fresh light 
upon their declarations till every vestige of doubt is 
removed from honest, candid minds. 

The Almighty has made this cornerstone of Chris- 
tianity so firm that it cannot be removed, and as year 
after year has brought the time of celebration the 
event has started new investigation, and produced 
deeper conviction on this and established and confirmed 
other correlated truths, so that no festival of the 
church has such strong historical basis as this. News- 
papers tell the story freshly in varied form each year ; 



THE EASTER MESSAGE 203 

the season impresses those who once neglected it and 
stiffly rejected its observance, since every Sabbath 
tells of the resurrection. The whole week is a week 
of celebration from Palm Sunday through Good Fri- 
day to Easter, a week of wonderful interest, reaching 
in its relations every intelligence and touching the 
borders of the two eternities. Each event is newly 
examined, the meaning of all is disclosed in profound 
meditations and the final scene confirms it all. 

The freshest scholarship of to-day tells us that the 
great German theologian, De Wette, who died in 
1849, and who was called the Universal Doubter, said 
in his last work, published in 1848, that the "fact of 
the resurrection, although a darkness which cannot be 
dissipated rests on the way and manner of it, cannot 
itself be called into doubt any more than the historical 
certainty of the assassination of Caesar." 

It is said that when Neander, the great church his- 
torian, read this passage he shed tears over it. 

De Wette was a leader of the acutest school of ra- 
tionalism in Germany in his day, and denied utterly 
that there are passages in the Old Testament Scrip- 
tures predicting the coming of our Lord. He was 
coupled by Strauss himself witli Vater as having 
placed on a solid foundation the mythical explanation 
of the Bible. Nevertheless, such is the cumulative 
force of the evidence of the resurrection as a fact in 
history that De Wette, listening only to the latest 
voices of the most laborious, precise and cold research, 



204 SPIRITUAL SAXITY 

affirmed, face to face with the sneers of the rationaHsm 
which he led, that the fact itself, although we do not 
understand the way and manner of it, is incontro- 
vertible. 

The continued celebration of tliis fact through the 
centuries, now with grand ritual, now with simple ser- 
vices, adds its forceful testimony to its truth and 
value, and we turn our thoughts to some lessons which 
the return of the season freshens in our minds. 

I. The Mastership of Christ in liis teaching is 
freshly asserted. 

The fact of Resurrection makes it unreasonable to 
further doubt the truthfulness of his instruction. 

In his hours of teaching Jesus often referred to 
this fact of resurrection, speaking of it as a certainty. 
We can now detect the force of those utterances in the 
Hght of the accompHshed fact. His disciples, even 
the best of them, however, obtained but Httle idea of 
his meaning, though the truth lies so plainly on the 
surface of his words. He used the most expHcit lan- 
guage. His crucifixion and resurrection were always 
allied lq his mind — they could not be separated. "I 
lay down my Hfe that I might take it again. I have 
power to lay it down, and I have power to take it 
again." He knew the one fact as well as the other. 
If there was doubt at all in his mind, it must have been 
respecting the Resurrection, for with the hatred of 
priesthood and authoritative men it was not hard to 
believe that death bv ^'iolence would speedily come, but 



THE EASTER MESSAGE «05 

ij rUt G^Liin — ^to overcome after being conquered — 
that wouid be sufficiait to stir a question in any souL 
but he spoke of it from the outset of his teadiing, 
surely, strcMigly and unhesitatingly. Xo <Mie hitherto 
had risen from the dead, the act of his own wilL The 
Lord himself had raised scmie, prophets had been in- 
strumental throu^ much prayer and special divine 
favor in restoring life, but no one had roused him- 
self, seized death with strong embrace and throwing 
it off, walked back into the strength and vigor of 
healthy life again. 

Was there ever doubt or fear in the miad of Christ 
concerning the issue of his life in this respect ? Did he 
hesitate to trust himself to the dark future, the cold 
graver Was the struggle of his soul on this account? 
Xo I far from it. There was never the sKghtest wav- 
ering of thought oa this point, from his reference to 
his body when they thought he spoke of the temple, 
declaring that if they destroyed it, he would rear it up 
in three days, to the last words he spoke to his disciples 
oa the threshold of the event itself. He taught his 
own resurrection. Men doubted it — they refused to 
follow his Mastership with such words on his lips. 
They declined to call him Rabboni. And when death 
held him in its cold fetters, even those who had received 
his teaching ceased to own him as Master. If then 
the truth of this teaching be established, is it not a 
guarantee of the correctness of other utterances ? Does 
it not set the seal upon every word that fell from his 



206 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

lips ? The most unlikely proven beyond controversy, 
is not his Mastership in teaching to be unqualifiedly 
asserted and accepted? 

The fact of resurrection coming to mind with 
Mary's acknowledgment of Rabboni, brings into view 
the great truths that characterized his instruction and 
hghts them up anew with the brilHance of an unob- 
scured sun. They assert their authority over every 
soul. They claim acceptance. The Great Teacher 
calls for the word of Mary in the garden, and every 
soul should say to Christ, the Teacher, "Rabboiii, 
which is to say Master." 

What are the truths thus certified concerning the 
race, concerning himself, concerning the future.'^ 

1. Of the race. That it is lost, Kke the piece of 
money for which the house must be swept and ran- 
sacked, like the sheep that had strayed "out on the 
hills away, far off from the gates of gold," 

"Away on the mountains wild and bare, 
Away from the tender shepherd's care," — 

like the prodigal son who had wandered from his 
father's house, and fed swine in a foreign land in want 
and suffering. That, though made in the divine like- 
ness, though godhke in soul and with marvellous pos- 
sibilities, yet by nature corrupt, and by practice sin- 
ful, man was treading a path that led into the eterni- 
ties of darkness and distress — that, though able, the 
race is unwilling to return to God ; that its moral abil- 
ity is crippled and destroyed; that choosing its own 



THE EASTER MESSAGE 207 

pleasure, lust and sin rather than the pleasure and 
holiness of God, all had gone astray and the world 
was a scene of painful burden, bearing which needed 
the call of loudest note to arrest its attention and the 
act of mightiest power to remove its load. That, 
though the planet kept its place and whirled in order 
in its orbit, the inhabitants staggered to and fro, reel- 
ing from side to side, knowing no moral strength, 
purity, or holiness, "none doing good, no not one." 
So taught he to whom the rise of Easter morning 
says, "Rabboni." 

2. Of himself. That he was God in the beginning, 
maker of heaven and earth. One with the Father in a 
holy unity — full of compassion for the lost race ; that 
of his own will he became incarnate, in a highly mys- 
terious manner, veiling himself in flesh for the help 
of his creatures, and that he came into the world for 
its rescue, as the lifeboat in the angry waves, as the 
light in the dark tempest, as the sun rising on the cold, 
cheerless waters, as the life in the midst of death, as 
the Saviour of the lost, as the mighty one whose power 
was equal to his work, as the loving one who came to 
lift the burden that oppressed, and give new strength 
to the tottering steps of the race, to breathe purity 
into the moral infection, to cast out from the soul the 
demon that ruled, and reign himself — the Prince of 
Peace. 

3. Of the future. That heaven and lioll had exist- 
ence, the realm of love and obedience, the abode of hate 



208 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

and continued sin. That one sheltered in holy ecstasy 
the loving children of God, saved from sin and all its 
evils, while the other held in wilHng servitude all those 
who hated God, and scorned his imperial power, his 
loving plans to purify and save from sin. 

The established fact of actual knowledge before the 
occurrence of events which Easter proves, makes cer- 
tain all this teaching. Upon prophecy, varied yet so 
harmonious, simple yet so sublime, the fact of resur- 
rection throws new light ; we read it in larger charac- 
ters. In bolder outline ; it is haloed in radiant beauty — 
the beauty of truth, the glory of God, and this morn- 
ing has a voice which thrills the soul as it proclaims 
anew with the westward passage of the sun in every 
clime, on every shore in one sublime utterance, the 
great truths of Christianity — a lost race, a loving 
God, a perfect Saviour, a resurrected Lord. 

II. The Mastership of Christ in his work Is re- 
established beyond the right of doubt by the fact of 
the Resurrection. 

The work of Christ was expKcitly stated. It was 
either a success or failure. 

"I came to work the works of God,'' are his words, 
which we have seen are to be believed. 

"I have finished the work that thou gavest me to 
do," he asserts at the close of his life. This work de- 
mands our acceptance. It was sublime, unparalleled 
in the history of the universe, grander than the work 
of creation, the highest illustration of the glorious 



THE EASTER MESSAGE 209 

character of our God — the work of salvation for man ; 
to maintain the honor of God and secure the pardon 
and acceptance of sinners in heaven. 

It has both its Godward and manhood side. 

First, It makes it possible for God to continue just 
and justly forgive the sinful, the disobedient, the re- 
bellious. Respect of law must of necessity dwell in 
the bosom of Deity — especially of that law which orig- 
inated from himself, and yet under its stem requisi- 
tions there was no hope for the sinful, the disobedient 
and rebellious. One doom hung over all ; the finger 
upon the judgment seat pointed in one direction and 
the eye, as it followed it, read the one condemnation 
which followed sin. It was righteous, it was just, and 
under it the race must die. But infinite love can work 
a new work, unheard of among the councils of the loft- 
iest of intelligences, a work which shall so transcend 
all other works as to constitute in itself a sufficient ex- 
pression of Divine disapprobation of sin, and ap*- 
proval of hohness, such a marked condemnation of sin 
with the tcnderest, holiest love for the sinner as shall 
in itself constitute a ground of forgiveness. Stem 
justice approves. Between her demands and the 
newly planned work there is no conflict. "Just and 
justifier of the ungodly" is a sentence which brings no 
ruffle to the brow of infinite Justice, and Christ per- 
forms the work and man can be forgiven. 

The seal of the work was the Resurrection of the 
worker, and when that illustrious event occurred back 



210 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

flashed the hght over the days and weeks of thirty 
years and pronounced the strange declaration that the 
kingdom of law had become the kingdom of grace. 
Well was the work performed, in suffering, in igno- 
miny, in shame, a work of blood, but in that blood was 
the life of millions ; it was a work like its author, a 
work of Redemption so complete that forgiveness is 
ready for all men in the moment of their application. 
Stained with sin as was the cross with blood, there is 
cleansing. The fiery bolt of the law hisses in the blood 
stream of grace and cools. The heavens melt with 
tenderness that once shook with thunderings. Sinai's 
thunders roll away in the distance and give place to 
the sweet words of "Blessed, Blessed, Blessed," which 
come from the mountain teaching. The Lamb at the 
Jewish altar gives place to the Lamb of God slain 
from the foundation of the world, and the heavenly 
host burst into a glorious song, the song of Redemp- 
tion of the Lamb that was slain. 

Easter Sunday tells this glorious work anew, for 
the Resurrection thus commemorated was the pledge 
and proof of God's satisfaction with the completed 
work. Sin was conquered. Death was conquered ; the 
grave was burst and Jesus rises to his glorious reign 
as Monarch and Master of all. 

•'Powers of Heaven, seraphic choirs, 
Sing and sweep your golden lyres ; 
Sons of men, in humbler strain, 
Sing your mighty Saviour's reign," 



THE EASTER MESSAGE 211 

Second. — The Resurrection sets the seal upon the 
work of Christ which makes it possible for a man to 
obtain forgiveness. 

Not only has God planned the way of escape, but 
he has so unfolded that plan as to bring it within the 
reach and understanding of every soul, and this was 
the work of Christ. "Repent and be baptized," was 
the first clarion note that heralded his coming. "Re^ 
pent ! repent ! for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand" 
sounded from city to city and echoed from hilltop to 
hilltop. It was the first step into that Kingdom. It 
is the first step still. Repentance toward God and 
faith in Christ is a requisition beyond the powers of 
none, and the work of Christ was to illustrate clearly 
to man the simple meaning of repentance, and to give 
so sweet, so rare, so beauteous a life and so transcen- 
dent a death as to be a loadstone of attraction to every 
soul. 

No longer is there a favored race, but all are loved 
and the same work avails for each. The cross has at- 
tractive power for every soul, has efficacy for every 
sinner, and the cry now is to the ends of the earth: 
"Ho ! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters — 
yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and with- 
out price." 

Again recalling the resurrection morning I tell you 
of the Master-teaching and the ]\Iaster-work of (^lirist. 
It is not the marvel of the rising itself that is to hold 
your attention, not the scenic splendor of it in its 



212 



SPIRITUAL SANITY 



glorious isolation, but that which is established by it 
in the correlation of the events of Christ's Hf e. 

It calls for the acceptance of his words as the truth, 
for the obedient discipleship of every soul. It is the 
appeal of his divinity for the Master's right. 

Who shall be Rabboni if not the risen Lord? What 
other can approach him in splendor of teaching, in 
glory of sacrifice, in majesty of power? Who else has 
the words of eternal life? Who else can lead the sacra- 
mental host through the gates into the city? 

Before whom else would we bow in our moments of 
agony and our days of weakness? When the chill of 
death comes, and the hand of disease fumbles for our 
life centre to stop its beating, upon whom would we 
rely? In our life ignorance and in our death ignor- 
ance to whom would we look ? 

Surely to him and to him alone whose reassertion of 
power renewed the early disciplesliip, and to whom we 
would say this morning, not in sui-prise but in affec- 
tionate trust, "Rabboni of Mary, thou art also my 
Master !" 



XV 
STEPHEN 

"Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost." — Acts 6 :5. 

The man whose name was Stephen may well claim 
a place in our thought, for, though his public life was 
brief, it was of such a nature as to make it enduring, 
and the stars shall disappear from heaven sooner than 
Stephen shall be lost to sight from the spiritual ga- 
laxy. If only as the man whose prayer was answered 
in the conversion of Paul, he is entitled to the highest 
consideration of the Christian Church, but he enforces 
our attention by his own character, as well as his acts, 
and appeals with resistless power to our sympathy and 
love and calls out our profound veneration. While 
the great mountainous characters of the Old Testa- 
ment begin to be obscured in the October haze of his- 
tory, we see rising on our vision new summits of noble 
proportions, lighted with brilliant beams upon tlieir 
crowns, assuring us that the race lias not lost its he- 
roes and the great upheaval of Christianity has made 
as massive and colossal characters as ever appeared in 
the days of old. 

213 



214 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

It does not require the Philistine stature to make 
greatness, nor the iron mould that forms it fropi with- 
out; it needs not the age of war nor bartjaric gran- 
deur to build up human greatness ; the grande^c chief 
that ever sat at the head of his band of nobles^ sur- 
rounded with all the paraphernaHa of conquest, his 
garments stiff with gems, his crown heavy with dia- 
monds, his palace loaded with treasure, becomes di- 
minutive in the presence of him who is trained in 
Christian virtue, has subdued his own spirit and been 
decked with the magnificent apparel that sparkles 
with the gems of Christian grace of priceless worth. 
And Stephen, by the greatness of his character, built 
up from within into stupendous proportions and orna- 
mented from above by the glory from the celestial 
throne, commands the attentive study of the sons of 
men. The acquisitions of the rich stir the acquisitive 
desires of the poor. The learning of the erudite 
quickens the studies of the ignorant ; the power of the 
orator stimulates the efforts of the young declaimer ; 
the victories of the legislator at the bar or the forum 
rouse the energies of the youthful barrister, and so 
the well-rewarded faith and power of Stephen should 
stir the zest of every disciple of Christ who comes 
within reach of his potent and instructive influence 
to-day. 

He was an Hellenistic Jew, a man of Hebrew origin 
speaking Greek. Of his parentage we know nothing ; 
his early history is all hidden from us ; his first ap- 



STEPHEN 215 

pearance is as one of the seven men of honest report, 
full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, who were chosen 
as deacons in the Apostolic Church to superintend the 
daily ministrations of funds to the poor and settle the 
difficulties that had already arisen between the Greek- 
speaking Jews and those born in Palestine. The great 
beneficence of the early Christians was shown in the 
generous self-sacrifice which all made for the common 
good. The wealthy brought their entire possessions 
and gave them over to the disposal of the apostles and 
the proper distribution of treasures was a work re- 
quiring wisdom and the truest Christian character. 

Stephen was the first and chief of those selected for 
this purpose. He may have been one of those Greeks 
who came to Philip of Bethsaida and desired him, say- 
ing, "Sir, we would see Jesus," and to whom Jesus 
said, "The hour is come that the Son of Man shall be 
glorified" ; before whom he prayed, "Father, glorify 
thy name," and in whose presence came the voice from 
heaven saying, "I have both glorified it and will glor- 
ify it again." He was doubtless present on the day of 
Pentecost and felt the mighty descent of the Holy 
Ghost ; he saw the multitude converted, the very nmr- 
derers of Christ, the rabble that had chosen Barabbas 
and filled the air with demon shrieks of "Crucify Him, 
Crucify Him," when Pilate asked what he should do 
with Christ. He may have been present at the cruci- 
fixion, watched with those who gathered there and felt 
the tremor in his soul when the rocks rent, the heavens 



216 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

clouded, and men smote on their breasts saying, "Sure- 
ly this was the Son of God." He had heard the first 
apostohc sermons, looked upon the spot where Judas 
had hanged himself and seen, perhaps, the ghastly 
spectacle of the self -murdered apostate; had shared 
the common bounties with the disciples, seen the lame 
man sitting at the Beautiful gate of the temple, walk- 
ing in the strength of his restored powers ; had wit- 
nessed the opposition of the priests to Peter and John 
and been strengthened by their boldness. He had per- 
haps been one to bear away the bodies of Ananias and 
Sapphira as they fell dead at the apostles' feet for 
lying to the Holy Ghost ; he had known of Peter's de- 
liverance from prison and his speech before the coun- 
cil which cut to the heart of the chief priests, and 
growing in grace, he was an ardent disciple when we 
first met him, full of faith and of the Holy Ghost. Of 
liis advantages for early study, his acquaintance with 
rabbinical lore, his membership in any school, the 
effect of any teacher, we are left without information. 
He comes to us as Minerva came from the brain of 
Jove, springing forth clad in full panoply for the 
battle of life. 

With the first mention of his name is coupled the 
sentence, "A man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost," 
while nothing is said of the other six men chosen tor 
the same office at the same time. Upon his head the 
hands of the apostles were laid, but the great benedic- 
tion had already been given and they needed not to say 



STEPHEN 217 

to him, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost." He seemed to 
have the power of an apostle ; his faith allied him with 
the omnipotent Christ, and his power was felt among 
the people. Great wonders and miracles were wrought 
by him. He is declared to be full of grace, according 
to manuscripts which have been preserved. Whether 
this display of unusual possessions was the result of 
his conversion, opening to him anew these elements of 
character, or whether his previous life had also' been 
marked by energy and boldness, we shall have to learn 
from his own lips by and by. We should like to read 
the record of his daily life. His name was on the lips 
of all as they related the wonders of the day. Many 
lame men doubtless blessed him, as they told the story 
of their immediate cure. Many sightless ones blessed 
him, as he became the first image on the quickened 
retina. All classes felt the value of his presence in sub- 
stantial form. We can judge of the wonders and the 
miracles by those which the apostles wrought, and the 
poor found in him more than a simple church official. 

The office of deacon was made forever grand by the 
deaconship of this one man, the first to bear the name, 
yet the grandest of the line, an office sometimes ma- 
ligned, ofttimes refused by men and gatliering the 
jeers of the crowd, made the butt of the wicked, but 
still bearing on its standards the name of Stephen, 
illustrious on earth, exalted in heaven. 

But this man wan not famous only for his deeds of 
power, but also for the wisdom and skill of his speech 



gl8 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

and the spirit which pervaded his disccurse. There 
were various schools or sets of Jews in Jerusalem, and 
from their synagogues came forth their gifted men to 
argue with the young deacon on the points of his 
faith. Here were Jews from Cilicia, from Alexandria, 
the manumitted slaves from Rome, men trained in their 
schools of thought, sharing in the learning of Gama- 
liel and other Rabbis of both Pharisaic and Saddusaic 
faith. From the banks of the Tigris and the Eu- 
phrates, from the Nile and Niger, from the provinces 
of Asia Minor and the deserts of Arabia and from the 
islands of the blue sea came Jews of every description 
and hngered in the Holy City. From the banks of the 
Cydnus, where flourished the vigorous city of Tarsus, 
came a young man about thirty-five years of age, 
trained in the highest schools of Jewish thought, 
strong in his attachments to the religious faith of his 
fathers, hating Jesus and the doctrine of the cross. 
In the street, within the precincts of the Temple, in 
private houses, in public halls these defenders and 
doctors of the ancient faith met Stephen and charged 
upon him with all their mental artillery. Learned 
members of the sjmagogue came to the rescue of the 
unsuccessful debaters and they themselves were van- 
quished by the wisdom of the Hellenistic deacon, for 
"they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit 
with which he spake." 

Even Saul of Tarsus, the rising young man in the 
Cilician Synagogue, with all his zeal and all liis dis- 



STEPHEN 219 

tinguished talent, was completely routed by the spiri- 
tual strength and wisdom of Stephen's speech. The 
Holy Ghost illuminated his mind, brought to his re- 
membrance the words of Jesus, furnished ripe, re- 
ligious thought, and gave him fervent utterance. 
His faith climbed to the mind of God and used 
his wisdom, settled in the love of God and gained a 
warmth for his discourse the cold philosopher never 
knew. He flashed the light on Old Testament proph- 
ecy, the national history, the preparation that had 
been made for the Messiah, the faithful fulfillment of 
type in antitype. His words were barbed with gospel 
sharpness and heated in the flames of truth. They 
flew as from a full strung bow and quivered in the 
hearts of those that heard. The Sanhedrin was moved. 
The man whose argument had so much power that 
none could answer it, whose scholarship seemed fur- 
nished with the wisdom of the ages, upon whose pure 
and noble soul no stain of corruption appeared, above 
contempt, above reproach, above the slanders of the 
town, pure from the contaminations of the vile, a vic- 
tor in soul and spirit, must be removed as a dangerous 
foe to the Jewish faith, as too strong a power in the 
Christian heresy. His boldness must be checked, his 
argumentations must cease. 

But none can tell of evil in liis life, none have 
trapped him in his speech. Sagacious, skilled, the 
Holy Ghost has kept him in the hours of lieated dis- 
pute. Yet they who hired witnesses and bribed liars 



220 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

to condemn the Master, can also find other depraved 
men to convict the disciple. Their purpose ripens and 
is soon acccmpHshed, and it is in the trial of Stephen 
and its results that he gains his immortal fame. This 
is the only scene recorded in his history? yet it has so 
much of ferocity and gentleness, folly and wisdom, is 
so lighted by the lurid flames of sin and the golden 
beams of holiness that, hung on the walls of Scripture 
history, it is a painting never to be forgotten, whose 
colors never fade and never fail to attract. 

The scene is brief, but thrilling at every point. 
Stephen is arrested on a charge of blasphemy, and 
suborned men testify, ''We have heard him speak blas- 
phemous words against Moses and against God." With 
angry looks and angrier words, with a rabble crowd 
following, filling the air with shouts, the elders and 
scribes bring him to the council. He who cannot be 
vanquished in argument can be condennied by au- 
thority. 

The Sanhedrin gets to its work. It is the same body 
that but a few months before had before them the 
meek Xazarene, whose following they supposed they 
had destroyed in slaying him ; but now the same faces 
look upon an advocate of the despised philosophy and 
have to confess that, like his Master, he speaks with 
authority not to be despised. 

The priests are anxious, for the sect increases ; the 
scribes are furious, for the law and the temple ser\dce 
are neglected by these new teachers; the elders axe 



STEPHEN 221 

maddened that the city is so' moved by the preachers of 
this new faith. Before their bar stands the accused and 
their hearts fail them, as they look upon him. He 
does not shrink from dread of their authority, he does 
not quail before their fierce glances, he does not trem- 
ble at the knowledge of their power, his cheek does 
not blanch as he stands where the Crucified stood, but 
the calm sense of superior truth seems to be like an 
adamantine throne beneath him ; they recall their other 
victim ; all the protests that accompanied his death 
return to their minds, hatred of the sect and fear of its 
power battle within them, but they grow stem and de- 
termined when the case is called and the false wit- 
nesses testify, "This man ceaseth not to speak blas- 
phemous words against this holy place and the law. 
for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth 
shall destroy this place and shall change the customs 
which Moses delivered to us." 

The charge is heard by Stephen, and his soul is 
roused to speak the truth in all its majesty in the 
presence of this august court, the highest tribunal 
known to the Jewish people, and the glow within 
reaches an outward expression and the strength, the 
purity, the holiness of the man, with his calm trust in 
God, his reliance upon divine power to protect liim, all 
shine out in his face, and, forgetting for an instant 
the charge of his lying witnesses, the whole council, 
looking steadfastly on him, saw his face, as it had been 
the face of an angel. The brutality of the bare-faced 



222 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

witnesses, the earthliness of the sharp-faced coundl, 
stands out in living contrast with the serenity and 
spirituahty of this man whose destruction they so 
eagerly seek. Touched by the heavenly glow upon his 
face, awed perhaps for a moment by remembrance of 
the shining face of that very Moses as he came from 
the presence of God to the people and against whom 
this shining-faced man is said to speak, the chief priest 
quietly questions, "Are these things so?" The dignity 
of the place is not forgotten by Stephen, though all 
things tend to disturb him and awaken invective and 
supply sting. Though the living witnesses, the tumul- 
tuous people, and the excited council conspire to rouse 
him to an eager plea for his life, or to a taunting 
speech that shall quicken his death, he is not betrayed 
into sin nor does he lose sight of his exact surround- 
ings. He is still Christian, and so of necessity still a 
respecter of age and authority ; his politeness does not 
forsake him as he says calmly, "Men, brethren and 
fathers, hearken !" 

His address reviews the history of the people and 
their relation to the ambassadors of God. He shows 
them how the patriarchs sold Joseph, though God was 
with him, how they rejected Moses raised up of God 
for their dehverance, how they became idolaters when 
Moses was receiving the law from heaven, how the 
Most High dwells not in temples made with hands, ac- 
cording to his own word, though Solomon built him 
an house, and then, borne on the tide of his resistless 



STEPHEN 223 

argument, moved by the full power of the Holy Ghost 
within him, he turns upon the council thirsting for his 
blood, representing all the learning, the power and 
piety of the Jewish church, and charges them with 
stubbornness, uncovenanted hearts, disregard of God's 
word, and, rising on the historic presentation of 
prophets, he accuses them of betraying and murdering 
the Just One, the Messiah, and of violating the very 
laws of God which they were sent to explain and de- 
fend. The glow upon his face brightens, for to speak 
the truth where courage in its noblest form is needed, 
and where the help of God is consciously bestowed, 
exalts the human soul to the pinnacle of human great- 
ness. And there stood Stephen, a humble layman from 
the despised Christian church, braving the court that 
had murdered Christ, with the light of heaven glowing 
about him. But the faces of the court are pallid with 
rage, the venerable men thus accused tremble in the 
fierceness of their wrath, while words that never be- 
fore were spoken in their solemn room of assembly 
still sting and cut their hearts. 

He who could speak beyond the power of any an- 
swer had another power of which they little dreamed 
vrhen the chief priest bade him answer to the charge 
against him. The youthful Saul listened to the thrill- 
ing voice and saw the glow upon the face of him wliose 
boldness must have impressed him, whose words he 
never forgot. The fury of the court was at its height, 
and, disregarding the propriety of a judicial body, 



224 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

they gave the signal for a violent outbreak and gnash- 
ed upon him with their teeth. The horrors of the in- 
quisition were then unknown or they would have hur- 
ried him to the fires of the gridiron or the remorseless 
rack, but this was reserved for Christian persecutors. 
The malignant hatred and fiendish ferocity of the 
now rabble council only served to deepen the calm of 
Stephen, and his noble testimony for God brought 
heavenly recognition as the windows of heaven opened 
and a direct ^dsion of its superlative glory was vouch- 
safed to liim. ^'He saw the glory of God and Jesus 
standing on the right hand- of God." The council 
chamber at Jerusalem had opened its walls into celes- 
tial infinitudes and the voice of hate was lost in that 
majestic chorus of praise that swept through the open 
corridors of heaven upon the convicted man. His sight 
of Jesus, whom he recognizes as still the Son of man, 
interested in all the stiniggles of his followers, stand- 
ing up to receive him, to succor him, m.oved with in- 
tense sohcitude for him, opens his hps in precious tes- 
timony of what God gives to those who suffer for his 
sake, to all the needy among men ; and they, already 
full of wrath, hear the words of the victim whom they 
are seeking to intimidate, "Behold, I see the heavens 
opened and the Son of man standing on the right hand 
of God," and they remember that it was the voice of 
Jesus that said in their assembly, "Hereafter shall ye 
see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power 
and coming in the clouds of heaven," and there al- 



STEPHEN 225 

ready is a living witness of the exalted sight, and the 
glory of the Shekinah gleaming from his face added 
its testimony to the truth of his words. 

With no power to judicially put the man to death, a 
mob is excited and Stephen is dragged from the coun- 
cil hall — rushed through the city streets, hurried 
through the open gate that years after bore his name, 
and so on to the rocky edges of the ravine of Jehosha- 
phat, where the Mount of Olives looks down upon 
Gethsemane and Siloam, or on the open grounds to' 
the north, which travelers cross when they go towards 
Samaria or Damascus, and there, with stones that lay 
without the walls of this Holy City, this heavenly- 
minded martyr was murdered. The stones fell heavy 
upon his resistless head, prayer rises from his Hps, 
"Lord Jesus, receive my spirit," and "Lord, lay not 
this sin to their charge," and, as though on bed of down 
in quiet chamber, under ministry of loving friends, 
with the memory of loving voices in his ears, or at tlie 
close of some day of labor on the cool mountain side, 
fanned by fragrant breezes, shaded by tree of olives, 
with the voice of Jesus speaking in his ear, and the 
hand of Jesus held fast in his embrace, he fell asleep. 

No face of murderer could be recalled, no angry 
tone of furious priest, no jibe, nor jeer, nor cruel jest, 
for from celestial glory and the face of Christ his 
gaze was never turned, and still it is fixed upon the 
same sublime spectacle. 

"0 Death! where is thy sting.?" If cruel men, with 



226 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

savage hate and murderous stones, can only put the 
martyred man to sleep, and while the blood is flowing 
from opened veins and the ground is stained with the 
vital tide, the soul is filled with the glory of the divine 
and the Hps move in holy converse with the exalted 
Lord — come stones, come fire, come venomed dart, 
come fiends of earth, or hosts of hell, "let me die the 
death of the righteous, and let my Igist end be Hke 
his.'' 

The sorrow and consternation of the disciples at the 
tragic death amid so much heavenly support of their 
friend and brother beloved must have been intense. 
Yet his friends took his marred and bleeding body, 
cared for it tenderly, held over it the mournful service 
of a Jewish funeral and buried it with solemn lamenta- 
tion. It is even told in story that Gamaliel sent a 
number of Christians to remove the body of Stephen 
and to bury it at his villa, twenty miles from Jerusa- 
lem, and that he made lamentation over him seventy 
(days. But the prayers of the last hour were an- 
swered, and Saul, who held the garments of the 
stoners, who heard the final prayer, was soon a 
preacher of the faith he persecuted, and long since, 
after faithful life, joined Stephen in the presence of 
him they both devoutly loved. 

This life carries its own teaching, and needs but 
little comment. The faith in Stephen did not exempt 
him from trial, but supported him through it; the 
love which he trusted never grew weak, however much 



i 



STEPHEN 227 

he leaned upon it. The vision which he saw was the 
approval of God upon Christian effort and Christian 
faithfulness, and as such appeals to us, and the care 
which was taken of him by the Lord, the elevation of 
his soul, his consciousness of spiritual Hfe and being, 
as he passed out of the body, contains the strongest 
rebuke for all those who walk In dungeon dread of 
dying and think only of the grave as the home of the 
dead. No! No! we are surrounded by the hving, 
angels are his ministers, the ransomed are with him, 
and to be absent from the body is to be present with 
the Lord. 

For the life of this calm, strong, faithful, trustful 
man, for the serenity and beauty of his last earthly 
hours, we give our thanks to God, and pray that we, 
too, may be full of faith and of the Holy Ghost. 



He heeded not reviling tones. 

Nor sold his heart to idle moans, 

Though cursed and scorned and bruised with stones: 

But looking upward, full of grace. 

He prayed, and from a happy place 

God's glory smote him on the face. 



XVI 

"THE PRISONER'S SIGH'' 

*'Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee." — Psahn 79:11. 

When the seventy-ninth psalm was written, either 
by Asaph or one of his descendants, the ruins of 
Jenisalem lay before the writer and stirred his spirit 
to a mournful dirge. Shishak, with his twelve hun- 
dred chariots and sixty thousand horsemen, had in- 
vaded Judah, pillaged the capital city, and dragged 
many of the Jewish nobility into captivity. On the 
monuments of Karnak we may see the pictured story 
of these sad prisoners, some of whom were reserved to 
be offered in sacrifice to the heathen gods. No- wonder 
their misery entered into the heart of their country- 
man and found plaintive utterance in his prayers. 

The sighing of the prisoner is the saddest sound on 
earth. Freedom is the necessary condition of healthy, 
joyous life. The humming bird, dainty expression of 
volatile life, feeding on sweets, flitting amid frag- 
rance and flashing in sunshine, dies under any im- 
prisonment, and all that it represents suffers the same 
lot. Men and women may still live when flung intoi 

228 



H 

II 



"THE PRISONER'S SIGH" 229 

prison ; that is, their bodily organism may continue its 
work, but there is much in them that dies — only a part 
continues to live, and when the imprisonment is the 
result of a capture by some foreign potentate, as in 
the case of Israel, or is the result of some political 
tyranny, as in the case of the Siberian exiles, or is 
the effect of religious persecution, as in the days of 
Rome's dastardly reign, the suffering is intense, the 
pining rapid, and the sighing painful to hear on earth 
or in heaven. 

Many noble souls, gifted with power to lead their 
fellowmen to victory on the field or in the pursuits of 
peace, have, by the silence and solitude of the dun- 
geon, been slowly shorn of their power, and at length 
brought forth to the light again, as the trembling 
fragments of their former selves. You remember the 
condition of the prisoner of Chillon, whom Byron 
makes to say : 

"It might be months or years or days; 

I kept no count — I took no note. 
I had no hope my eyes to raise, 

And clear them of their dreary mote. 
At last news came to set me free; 

I ask'd not why, and reck'd not where; 
It was at lenp^th the same to me, 
Fetter'd or fetterless to be, 

I learned to love despair. 
And thus when they appeared at last. 
And all my bonds aside were cast. 
These heavy walls to me had ^rown 
A hermitage — and all my own! 



230 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

And half I felt as they were come 
To tear me from a second home; 
With spiders I had friendship made 
And watch'd them in their sullen trade. 
Had seen the mice by moonlight play. 
And why should I feel less than they? 
We were all inmates of one place. 
And I, the monarch of each race, 
Had power to kill — yet, strange to tell! 
In quiet we had learn 'd to dwell — 
My very chains and I grew friends. 
So much a long communion tends 
To make us what we are : even I 
Regain'd my freedom with a sigh.'* 

iAnd that sigh, declaring the burial of so much 
noble manhood, was the saddest of all. 

Compulsory service for no fault wears the soul and 
wastes the body, and the elements that enter into the 
sigh that is extorted from such are the noblest that 
belong to the race made in the image of God. The 
story of poHtical Imprisonment, which forms so large 
a part of human history, is pitiful — the waste of hu- 
man Hf e that has been occasioned by the greed of the 
tyrant, the lawless spirit of the usurper and the jeal- 
ous wrath of the petty monarch, fills the reader of 
historic annals with distress. The permanent injury 
to bodies, the lasting infirmity of minds, the cripphng 
of spiritual energies have followed wicked incarcera- 
tion, and the sighing of kings and queens and princes 
and nobles have been prayers in the ears of the Lord 
of Heaven which have been answered in events that 



« 



^^THE PRISONER'S SIGH" 231 

shook the nations and sent wicked rulers tottering* 
from their thrones. But there is often an inward sup- 
port for an unjust and crimeless imprisonment: 

•'Brightest in dungeons. Liberty! thou art. 
For there thy habitation is the heart — 
The heart which loss of thee alone can bind ; 
And when thy sons to fetters are consigned — 
To fetters and the damp vault's day less gloom. 
Their country conquers with their martydom. 
And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. 

*'May none these (prison) marks efface! 
For they appeal from tyranny to God." 

But there is another great class of people in the 
world who make prisons and reformatories and jails a 
necessity, and who are confined because of the wicked- 
ness of their spirits and the need of protecting society 
from their ravages. The prison is found in every 
land, in every age, and bears its woeful testimony to 
the truthful statement of man's fall from primeval 
innocence. Nobody but a criminal himself can be 
found to declare that imprisonment is not a necessity. 
There is something appalling in the thought of taking 
a man from his family and all the blessings of com- 
mon society, and placing him within stone walls and 
behind iron bars, with the marks of a criminal on his 
clothing, with limited food and a constant watch upon 
all his movements. It almost stops the heart's beating 
to think of a fond and petted boy iiidely seized from 
the protecting hand of liis mother, and compelled to 



232 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

live with men hardened in crime, because of his own 
violation of law — but we all recognize the right and 
the necessity of such public action. There would be 
no safety to property or to life but for the processes 
of justice which land the criminals in the houses of 
stone provided for them. 

Why there continue to be criminals is a question too 
broad for our present discussion. When we read the 
story of Margaret, the mother of criminals, and see 
the terrible drift towards crime that runs in the blood ; 
when we study the history of the Jukes family and 
compare it with others, we obtain some explanation for 
crime from the laws of heredity ; when we take account 
of the weak and the wicked, the discouraged and the 
defrauded, the poor and the stiniggling ; when we con- 
sider the great inequalities in human condition and 
the false riews of hf e that are widely circulated ; when 
we note the stiTiggles of the noble to retain their no- 
bihty of character in a world of sin and temptation, 
we have added explanation of the presence of a crimi- 
nal class in human society. But we are hardly pre- 
pared without careful study to believe in the vastness 
of the necessary preparation to control these wicked 
classes. 

We have read of the great prisons of other days 
and shuddered at the thought of the dungeon of the 
Inquisition, the gloom of the Bastile, the horrors of 
the Tower. We pass a jail with a disturbed feehng, 
and do not wish to read of the prisoner when he has 



"THE PRISONER'S SIGH" 233 

passed out of sight. Of the great multitude of men, 
women and children who at this very hour are de- 
prived of liberty because of their wicked deeds we 
have little idea, and often less interest in knowing. 
Crime is so unattractive save to the baser nature that 
we have felt it better to leave the whole subject to 
those whose duty it is officially to attend to' it. And so, 
effort to ameliorate the condition and reform the life 
of the prisoner belongs to modern benevolence. 

The dark story of a prisoner's life before the time 
of Constantine had nothing td relieve its horror, and 
the misery of a criminal's lot even until our own day 
is painfully pathetic. The world seemed to forget that 
the criminal was but a fallen man — that he had other 
faculties than those that led. him astray, and that 
under a hardened exterior beat a tender heart — that 
within him was a soul for wliich Christ died. The 
first nominally Christian emperor of Rome provided 
that confinement should be in a humane manner — that 
cells should be furnished with air and light ; that the 
mingling of the sexes in prison • should be abolished. 
The Emperor Ilonorius charged the judges to visit 
the prisons every Sunday, to see that the prisoners 
received sufficient nourishment and to take Ccvc that 
proper humanity be shown the convicts by the jailers. 
But the progress in reform was slow, for tlie punish- 
ments were terrific. Crucifixion, exposure to wild 
beasts, burying ahvc, im})aling, tearing to pieces, 
breaking on wheels, were cominon in classic and Mid- 



234 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

die Age days. The inventions for the production of 
pain were ahnost barbaric. Nothing was too severe 
for a criminal. Screws were invented for compressing 
the thumbs; straight boots of iron for enclosing the 
legs, between which and the flesh wedges were driven 
by mallets ; racks of various and hideous forms, capa- 
ble of occasioning the most exquisite agony, were con- 
stantly devised. The ^*strappado" was used. This 
was an instrument for hoisting the person by a pulley 
fastened to his wrists to a sufficient height and drop- 
ping him with a jerk, dislocating his joints. So also 
was "picketing," where the offender was suspended so 
that the weight of his body was supported by a spike, 
on wliich he was made to stand with one foot. 

Bentham relates that a description of the various 
methods of inflicting torture and punishment which 
had been in use in the Austrian dominions was ordered 
by the Empress Maria Theresa to be drawn up, this 
investigation being made with a view to ameHorate the 
existing laws. The book was only exposed for sale 
for a few days, then suppressed for fear that it would 
inspire a horror of the laws. 

In the time of George III. pubhc whipping for dog- 
stealing was common in England, and the common law 
enforced the sHtting of the nostrils and cutting of ears 
for many offences. Branding and wliipping have been 
common in all countries. Within the past century 
men have been hanged in England for sheep- stealing 
and steahng in a house, and in the early history of the 



"THE PRISONER'S SIGH" 235 

United States, many offences, like forgery, stealing 
and horse-stealing, brought the death penalty after 
them. In Massachusetts, under the early legislation 
after the Revolution, ten different crimes were punish- 
able with death, among them burglary ; blasphemy 
was punished with pillory and stripes till 1829. In 
Virginia and Kentucky, twenty-seven offences were 
punished by death or maiming. In New York, on sev- 
eral occasions in the eighteenth century, negroes were 
burned alive for extreme crimes, and the treadmill was 
used as late as 1822. We read in American colonial 
history that a preacher in the principal Philadelphia 
prison was obliged to be supported by a cannon, with 
a lighted match at hand ; that the Connecticut prison- 
ers were kept in one place in underground cells drip- 
ping with moisture, where the light of day never 
penetrated and where vice and riot prevailed; that in 
the leading city. New York, old and young, male and 
female, sane and insane, innocent and criminal, were 
confined in jails together ; that drunkenness, debauch- 
ery, profanity and rioting ruled in these places, so 
that all prisons and jails became schools of crime. 
Surely, under such fearful conditions as these, tliere 
was no chance for the saving of the criminal classes. 
They were absolutely cast out of human society and 
counted like the beasts in the pens of a menagerie, if 
they ever entered into thought at all. But the sigliing 
of the prisoner entered into listening ears, and all this 
is changed, and one has to view the material provision 



236 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

now made for those who have gone astray with admi- 
ration and dehght — he hstens to the debates and reads 
the papers of those who have given their Hves to the 
study of penology with quickened expectation, and 
lifts the psalmist's prayer with renewed hope: "Let 
the sighing of the prisoner come before thee." 

But if this improvement has been made, what have 
we further to do about it? 

Let the philanthropists continue their work, let 
prison associations become more diligent in their 
specific employ, let plans of helping discharged con- 
victs be encouraged, and God bless them all ! This is 
good as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. 
There are bleeding hearts longing for something mo-re 
than the practical interest and help of the few — they 
want the intelligent sympathy of all. There are wo'rk- 
ers that need the strong support of pubhc sentiment 
to make their work effective. Most of us are still 
blind to the situation. Dr. Seaman, who for ten years 
was chief of staff at Charity Hospital, Blackwell's 
Island, says that "the people have become so accus- 
tomed to this downward drift, this unresting current 
of wretchedness, profligacy and crime, possibly so 
hoodwinked by the imposing array of architectural 
groups and the glamour of official administration and 
official reports bristling with statistics, that they miss 
the ghastliness of the situation and think about it, if 
at all, in a vague and unconcerned way. All the while 
this menacing under-world, with a biting irony, asserts 



"THE PRISONER'S SIGH" 237 

itself and compels recognition, as does the cancer as 
it eats its way to the vitals. It seizes upon and sub- 
sidizes the fairest string of islands that graces a me- 
tropolis the world over. Stretching at little intervals 
from Governor's to Hart's Island, full eighteen miles, 
the Nemesis of penalty and retribution has planted its 
growing colonies of social wastes, of broken, degraded, 
repulsive, dangerous human detritus ; and this baleful 
colonization has pushed its way along those beautiful 
waters, keeping step with the advancing city, until its 
entire line of eastern frontage far up into' Westchester 
county is sentineled by these menacing excrescences of 
a moribund civilization." 

How shall we regard our criminals ? If perchance 
one of our own kindred is snatched by the whirling 
current and disappears in the maelstrom, the question 
becomes a personal one. When we learn from the state- 
ment of a prominent lawyer that there are in New 
York City 45,000 professional criminals of all grades 
constantly plotting against the law, we are aroused to 
the intense importance of the question. When we 
learn that five-sevenths of the prisoners in Sing Sing 
Prison are less than thirty years of age the question 
grows pathetic. When statistics prove that three- 
fifths of all convictions take place between the ages of 
sixteen and thirty the question summons us to instant 
consideration. 

It is easy for us to say, "They are poor, miserable, 
wretched creatures — shut them up and let them 



238 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

alone;'' but sentences are daily completed, and the 
procession not only moves into, but moves out from 
these prisons. Must their criminal life continue, be- 
cause in prison they have only been punished for their 
evil deeds, and no' springs of noble action set in motion 
to control their future? Must they say, as Seiior Ar- 
mengol, of Spain, declared: "We are criminals be- 
cause society used no means to make us virtuous"? 

Jean Valjean may steal the good bishop's candle- 
sticks, but he with rare kindness will declare, when the 
rearrested man is brought before him, that the booty 
belongs to him, and reach his heart and save him. Dr. 
Wines, a life student of this subject, says: "Whether 
criminals are susceptible toi reformatory influences 
and may be lifted out of the abyss into which they 
have fallen is no longer an open question. Experience 
has demonstrated the fact, and all authority worthy 
of the name utters its voice to the same eff^ect." 

There are three ways in which we may regard those 
of whom we have been thinking: 

First. — ^We may count them as wrongdoers, plun- 
derers of society, for whom just laws with penalties 
are made, and who when convicted of crime must be 
made to pay the penalty of their offences. We may 
pay our proportion towards the support of priaons, 
whose end shall be the punishment of crime. We may 
leave the whole administration of the laws regulating 
the criminal to the courts, and rejoice that society is 
well rid of its pests, when they are under lock and 



"THE PRISONER'S SIGH'' 239 

key. As the farmer breathes easier when the fox is 
safely trapped, so may we at the imprisonment of 
every criminal. We may clamor for more rigid police 
regulations, more severe sentences, less prison com- 
fort, with a due regard to what is right and humane, 
but by the severity of punishment we may seek to turn 
criminals from their evil ways. We may consider them 
as a class by themselves, with which we have nothing 
to do. But this thrusts us far back into the past, de- 
prives us of all the benefit of years of experience and 
takes away from us the right to call ourselves Chris- 
tian. With this vast body of people, the majority of 
whose years are yet before them, can we say we have 
no possible connection? To thrust the young criminal 
out of sight in a safe place for all but himself, to 
invest notliing but public money in great stone prisons 
and men of iron to keep stem rule over the recreant 
spirits committed to their cure, seems out of harmony 
with the spirit and progress of this century. 

Second. — We may add to this a desire to have some 
regular instruction given in morals and religion and 
industrial pursuits, so as to make the time of punish- 
ment a time of forcing some unwilling trutlus upon the 
attention. We may say of an individual : "He is in 
prison to be punished ; it may increase his punisliment 
to be forced to learn some good." We may be entirely 
unbelieving as to any good results, for we may con- 
sider that he is incorrigible ; be unwilling to trust him 
when he returns to society again — count him one of a 



240 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

class that is to perpetuate itself as long as time en- 
dures. We may be willing to encourage the occasional 
gifts of fruits and bounties ; may lend our influence 
to the securing of the best buildings ; may steadily de- 
mand that the prisoner shall be employed, lest in idle- 
ness in narrow cells imprisonment be torture. We 
may even be interested in furnishing books, and always 
the best hospital service for days of sickness. We may 
specially care for sanitary conditions, and for the 
quality and quantity of food. We may be interested 
to develop any natural industrial trait*, and exercise 
special care in the selection of all the oiBcers in charge. 
In a word we may regard the criminal as one to be 
duly and fully punished; to whom, however, we will 
give some kindly thought while' he is obtaining the 
just deserts of his crime. Tliis has been well done, 
and hopes have been cherished that such relation to 
the criminal will do liim good and restore him to his 
place in society again — but it has not succeeded. 

The student tells us that "our failure in the hand- 
ling of criminals, with reference to their reforaiation 
and the proportionate security of society and the de- 
crease of taxation, is due largely to the fact that we 
have considered the problem as physical, and not 
psychological. The efl'ort has been to improve prisons 
and the physical condition and enrironments of pris- 
oners. This effort has been directed by sentiment 
rather than upon principles of economy and a study 
of human nature. It has been assumed that if con- 



"THE PRISONER'S SIGH" 241 

victs were treated with more kindness, if they were 
lodged in prisons well wanned and ventilated, light 
and airy, in cells more roomy and comfortable, if they 
had better food and more privileges (graduated on 
good deportment), they would be more likely to re- 
form and to lead honest lives after their discharge. 
But it has not produced the results that were expected, 
and the revolt in the public mind against what is 
called the ^coddhng' system is justified by facts and 
results. The modem model prison is a costly and 
architecturally Imposing structure; It is safer to' lodge 
In and freer from odors than most hotels ; its cells are 
well warmed, lighted with gas, and comfortable ; it 
has a better dietary than most of its Inmates are ac- 
customed to ; it has bath-rooms, a library, often large 
and well selected ; an admirably arranged hospital ; a 
cheerful chapel, garnished with frescoes and improv- 
ing texts ; there are Sunday services and Sunday 
schools ; there is a chaplain who visits the prisoners to 
distribute books and tracts, and converses on religious 
topics ; there are lectures and readings and occa- 
sional musical concerts by the best talent; sometimes 
holidays are given ; there are extra dinners on Thanks- 
giving day, Christmas day, and the Fourth of July, 
when the delicacies of the season stimulate the lioliday 
and patriotic sentiments ; and In most State prisons a 
man may earn a considerable abatement of his sen- 
tence by good behavior. The sanitary condition of 
most of these model prisons is good; they are very 



242 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

good refuges in which to recuperate the system im- 
paired by excesses and crime. The discipline is excel- 
lent. The uniform close crop of hair is not always 
insisted on, and the better prisons are discarding the 
striped or motley prison dress as tending simply to 
degrade the men and serving no good purpose what- 
ever.*' 

All this we may consider as abundantly satisfying 
the interest which we ought to feel in those who by 
their acts have forfeited all claim to consideration, but 
toward whom common humanity and Christian senti- 
ment compel us to feel an anxious interest while we 
protect society against their depredations. But it is 
fully declared that there is very little difference be- 
tween our worst State prisons and our best, in the 
effect produced upon convicts as to reformation or a 
reduction of the criminal class. Something more than 
or different from all this must be de^-ised. Education 
and comfort do not prevent crime. Dr. Prime once 
said: "Scarcely a sane man, living m the darkest land 
under heaven, is so ignorant as to commit crime in 
consequence of it, or from want of knowledge that it 
is wrong to steal and commit murder. And if the en- 
tire population of the United States were taught the 
whole circle of sciences and arts, so that uneducated 
men were as rare as angels on earth, there would yet 
be crime. The Binghamton murderer, Ruloff, was a 
prodigy of learning. Dr. Webster was a professor 
in our oldest university. Euo^ene Aram was a school 



"THE PRISONER'S SIGH" 243 

teacher. And the ignoble army of official rascals 
* * * are not poor or ignorant or intemperate." 

Third. — We may regard the cnminal as a brother 
man who needs to be saved from his sins and whose 
imprisonment is to be made the opportunity for in- 
struction, stimulation and complete reformation. With 
all proper interest in the buildings and their manage- 
ment, our chief concern is to be with the man himself. 
Forlorn, forsaken, unworthy, outcast, he is to be the 
object of every possible effort looking to his complete 
moral recovery. Here is a new position for the public 
to occupy. Thank God! already occupied by some 
who, with heroic faith, are working along their new 
lines and bringing men from the smouldering fires to 
the cool retreats, from a degraded class to the ranks 
of the good and true. The song of redemption is 
sung by lips that were ghastly with profanity, and 
the peace of God fills hearts that beat in tune with the 
drums of Satan's host. Jerry McAulay shouted in a 
prisoner's cell with the new joy that filled his heart, 
and from the frowning walls of Sing Sing and Au- 
burn, from Randall's Island and Elmira, have gone 
forth many who have blest the world by their useful 
and orderly lives. 

The sighing of the prisoner has taken the place of 
his unholy curse, and as good work lias been done in 
the hearts of sinners in prison as was ever done in the 
gilded halls where Christ has been preached — a Sav- 
iour of the lost. We must regard the prisoner not with 



244 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

false and foolish sentiment, an unfortunate to be 
loaded with flowers, and liis cell to be filled with dain- 
ties, but as a wanderer to be brought to his Father's 
house, as a man to be brought to the ranks of man- 
hood again, a victim of many circumstances over all 
of which the grace of God can triumph. Let him be 
punished for crime, but let his punishment work out 
for him a path to noble living, to a restored home, to a 
trustful society, to his Father's house on liigh. The 
Prison Society says : "More than all, we need the 
prayerful moral support of thinking people. Our 
work is one that is at once philanthropic and economic. 
It helps men who are desperate, and so saves and pro- 
tects society against them." 

The testimony of prison chaplains declares the pris- 
oner to be like other men. They witness "their tears, 
prayers, repentance, confession, conversion and their 
fruits unto righteousness, as well as their rejection of 
the gospel, their repudiation of Christ, and their scep- 
ticism." 

All who strive for improvement, who beg for sym- 
pathy, who struggle for a foothold, who face the 
light, who bury their past in the forgiving love of 
God, should find in us such Christian sentiment and 
help as shall prove that not in vain has the sighing of 
the prisoner come before us. 



XVII 
CONSTERNATION AT DEFEAT 

"O Lord, what shall I say when Israel turneth their backs be- 
fore their enemies?" — Joshua 7;8. 

This earnest appeal to heaven demands the careful 
attention of old and young, as it presents a truth of 
such thrilling importance that it ought ever to be pres- 
ent in our thoughtful meditations. We are often puz- 
zled at the apparent defeat of the good. We stand in 
perplexity before a sudden check in some prosperous 
career. The apparent indifference of God to the 
struggles of his children leads the careless soul to an 
infidelity, ruinous alike to himself and others. The 
incidents to which I invite your study is full of helpful 
suggestion to such troubled souls. 

The children of Israel had encountered a new and 
thrilling experience. In the midst of a pro-sperity 
that promised continued victory and divine leadership 
they are stunned by a shameful defeat. Wliile jour- 
neying in the wilderness, full of complainings, tlieir 
punishment seemed to them merited and almost ex- 
pected — they were conscious of their own unwortlii- 

245 



246 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

ness. It was not strange, when from Kadesh they 
went out to meet the inhabitants of the land, that they 
were overcome, for they were not ordered to make 
their entry at that time, and the measure of their pun- 
ishment was not full — the words of their great leader 
constantly reminded them that they were rebelling 
against the Most High in their ingratitude and dis- 
content. But the years of discipline were now ended — 
the Jordan had been opened for them as the Red Sea 
for their fathers — the monument at Gilgal stood in 
everlasting remembrance of the divine interposition 
for their entry into the land — ^the fallen walls of 
Jericho were in sight, laid low by more than human 
power, apparently without human means, and the as- 
surance was in every heart that the time of tribulation 
had passed, that the old-time promise was in process of 
fulfilment. There was a new confidence in every heart, 
words of hope and courage were on every lip. 

But a sudden check is given to all these hopes, and 
the fear that startles them is in proportion to the hope 
that was so suddenly overthrown. 

Israel is defeated within the borders of the promised 
land. Her shouts of victory, late so loud and strong, 
are lost in the wild cries of her enemies ; the report of 
her power will quickly be supplanted by this story of 
her weakness ; the hearts of her foes will revive, as they 
hear of her prostrate banners and her easy overthrow. 
Dismay is in her own ranks. "God has forsaken us !" 
leaps from hp to lip throughout the tribes, and even 



CONSTERNATION AT DEFEAT U1 

the commander is heart-sick and troubled as in the 
bitterness of his spirit he mourns this sudden reverse. 
It is not only the defeat itself that distresses him, but 
all that is involved in it, all that is suggested by it. 

But in every age victory is the child of obedience in 
the army of the Lord. 

A God-led host can only prosper by close adherence 
to the word of command, and the fearful people, with 
their dejected leader, have yet a lesson to learn. 

We are amazed at the dullness of their spiritual 
perceptions. We marvel that they should not at once 
have discerned the cause of their misfortune, that they 
should not instantly have read their error in their loss 
of strength and sought its extermination. That 
instead of a wail of sorrow they should not have 
sounded the alarm, summoned the tribes and called 
out the offenders puzzles our souls. Yet the lesson is 
of value for us, because we are so like them. Thou- 
sands of years have not changed human nature in this 
respect. Forty years seem not to have impressed the 
Israelites with the fact of the close union of sin and 
defeat. Four thousand years have not done the same 
for many of us. Every foot of the ground they have 
traversed, every body they have buried on the hillside 
and in the plain has been vocal with the divine instruc- 
tion. The defeat of Israel before Ai teaches with 
fearful emphasis the whole lesson of the wanderings in 
a single illustration. It is like the exclamation point 
at the close of a sentence, like the finger point that 



248 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

directs attention to the whole, it is like a short way of 
proving the solution of a problem to be correct. 

God grant that its force may not be lost upon our 
children as they study it, nor upon us as we recall it 
again to-day. 

The city of Jericho, the first to resist the advancing 
people, had been taken in a manner to kindle the Hve- 
liest sense of the unconquerable power that now ac- 
companied the people of God, and the fame of Joshua 
was noised throughout all the country, because of tliis 
unparalleled capture. To the north as far as Dan, to 
the south as far as Beersheba, and to the western 
coast, consternation seized the people, giants even 
trembled in their strength, and all were ready to 
admit the mighty, resistless power of Joshua's God. 

The people themselves awake to the greatness of 
their victory, and doubtless boast of an easy conquest 
of the whole land. They begin to cast off responsi- 
bility and glory in the unseen armies of Jehovah. 
Jericho and its contents had been accursed and all was 
to be destroj^ed. It was devoted according to the law of 
"cherem," which required a complete separation to 
the Lord. If the thing devoted was property, it was 
the Lord's for use by consecration ; if a person or per- 
sons, it was to be put to death and special warning 
was given lest any of the cherem or devoted, "ac- 
cursed," property should be privately employed. 

The next city to be taken as the people advanced 
was Ai, about thirteen miles west of Jericho. The 



CONSTERNATION AT DEFEAT 249 

host IS still in camp at Gilgal, about the heap of 
stones that marks the wondrous "Help of God" to 
them. Ai is reconnoitered by some scouts who report 
the smallness of the place, and its easy capture. It is 
on the way to the centre of the land where the great 
religious ceremony is to be performed, and so must be 
taken as they pass on and before their deliverance 
from Egypt and re-ownership of the land of promise 
can be duly and grandly celebrated. 

Considering its smallness, Joshua accepts the ad- 
vice of the scouts and sends a band of about three 
thousand against perhaps the same number of fight- 
ing men among a population of twelve thousand which 
the city contained. With eager steps they advance 
upon the place, counting their work but slight, expect- 
ing to see the signs of surrender instantly displayed. 
Boldly they march directly to the city gate, with blast 
of trumpet, and as the city guard advances upon 
them, to their own amazement, consternation and dis- 
tress, their ranks break, they cannot hold their ground, 
but flee in haste and are hotly pursued. Quickly the 
word reaches the encamped host at Gilgal that Israel 
is defeated. It is like a peal of thunder from a clear 
sky, and Joshua and his elders abase themselves be- 
fore the ark of the Lord in grief and fear, lest by a 
sudden onset of their giant, enraged and now roused 
and successful foes, the whole people be smitten luid 
overcome. 

The leader's courage seems instantly to have for- 



250 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

saken him. The defeat is so unlocked for, so strange, 
so unaccountable that it blots out the victory at Jeri- 
cho, dims the divine help at Jordan, and clouds the 
whole horizon of his hopes. He is for a moment hke a 
vessel at sea without compass or rudder. He is speech- 
less before his own people, as well as before the heathen 
nations, and the wail of his soul is in the words of the 
text, "What shall I say when Israel tumeth their 
backs before their enemies, for the Canaanites and all 
the inhabitants of the land shall hear of it and shall 
environ us round and cut off our name from the earth, 
and what wilt thou do unto thy great name.^" He 
mourns for the lost honor of God and sighs for the 
other side of Jordan without Jericho and without the 
glorious passage of the stream. He does not seem to 
think that there is any cause that he can reach, that 
the people can correct, till called to himself by the 
instruction of the Lord. "Get thee up," is the Lord's 
cry. "Israel hath sinned, therefore the children of 
Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned 
their backs before their enemies because they were 
accursed : neither will I be with you any more, except 
ye destroy the accursed from among you." It is the 
voice of holiness speaking against sin. It is the awful 
logic of deity. Defeat therefore sin; sin therefore 
defeat. 

The evening is spent in ritual preparation for the 
scenes of the morrow. Rites, emblems of inward 
purity, are performed and early in the morning the 



CONSTERXATIOX AT DEFEAT 251 

tribe, the family, the man is taken and the ''cherem," 
the thing devoted to the Lord, is found appropriated 
for personal use and concealed, and the occasion of 
the defeat is thus disclosed. An embroidered cloak, 
one hundred and twenty dollars in silver, a gold wedge 
worth two hundred and twenty dollars, have been kept 
by Achan and all Israel is troubled in the theft of this 
one man. How trifling the possession ! It could not 
have been its value that caused the trouble. It was the 
disobedience involved, and in the valley of Achor, ere 
the sun set, his sin is punished, a heap of stones marks 
the place, thrilling as was the Ai failure in its mute 
teaching of the solemn connection between sin and de- 
feat, as was the memorial at Gilgal of the divine assis- 
tiince. Once again the army forms for conquest, and 
the city of Ai that had lately repulsed them falls easily 
into their hands because they have cleansed them of 
their iniquity and received anew the favor and help of 
the Lord, which is forfeit by every transgression and 
IS withheld from every body of believers in wliich there 
is concealed or unrepented sin. 

Tliis story thus told belongs in the far past and 
would have nothing more than an attractive historic 
interest for us, were it not for the lesson that remains 
unchanged for all time and which God evidently de- 
signed should be thus conspicuously set and taught 
for the guidance of every soul. To that let us now 
turn. 

Down through the aws comes tliis thriUintr teach- 



252 SPmiTUAL SANITY 

ing, holding its place in the volume of inspiration, 
losing none of its force in the progress of history, but 
gathering renewed illustration from age to age from 
similar events in God's providential dealings with peo- 
ples and individuals till from a colossal monument it 
speaks to us to-day ; for the heap of stones rising 
from the valley of Achor is so high that it is touched 
by the rising sun ere the evening rays are withdrawn, 
so that all men may see it and all may learn its signifi- 
cant meaning. The hosts of Israel swept through the 
promised land and conquered it. They slept in its 
soil — above their graves other feet trampled in the 
pursuits of peace, in the clash of arms, over its fields 
and in its cities roamed and taught the Son of man. 
Again, warlike hosts strove in maddened contest over 
its choice spots and the dust of the Christian and the 
Moslem mingled in its soil. Now, the teacher and the 
student roam its far-famed fields and children study 
its varied incidents ; still the marching and the war- 
ring hosts of God on other fields, in other lands, seek 
its inspirations and humbly learn its lessons. 

The old-time conquest is over, but its antitype still 
struggling with opponents we see in the Church of 
Jesus Christ, which is like Israel of old to possess its 
Canaan, even the whole world. Already it is well ad- 
vanced upon its stupendous achievement. By a 
grander event than the passage of the Jordan dry- 
shod has it been called into' being and promised its 
victory. From the cross where work divine was done, 



CONSTERNATION AT DEFEAT 253 

where the death of sin was spoken in the death of 
Christ, from the grave whose iron locks had never 
been broken by the power of personal will acting in 
its own behalf 5 the great Master and Leader came. No 
passage of the Jordan can compare with this, and 
still a loving presence, he leads his people to complete 
the conquest of the world. Every attack ought there- 
fore to be a victory. 

The promise waits fulfilment. Cities have been con- 
quered with more eclat than attended the fall of Jeri- 
cho, and other cities wait the army's advent to' swell 
the triumph of our Captain Lord. All forms of evil 
are to be our captives. The giant sin entrenched, 
walled and well defended, is to fall, and to the Church 
of Christ is given command to enter and subdue the 
world. She essays her work, but sometimes falters 
and her banners are lowered before the foe. Dismay 
creeps into her heart and the howl of demoniac forces 
encourages her enemy. Men sit down in such hours to 
write books and articles on the question, "Is the Church 
a failure.^" "Is Christianity wanirig.'^" and her lead- 
ers bow their heads in sorrow and confusion. Faith 
may be strong, but it is claimed that facts are against 
an intelligent faith. What is the cause of defeat at 
any point.? The power of the Church is omnipotent, 
for her leader is Christ. Why, then, is there ever a 
defeat .f^ Only because the old law is regnant still, that 
a God-led host must be obedient and the victory in tlie 
battle lies in the purity and obedience of the host. 



25i SPIRITUAL SANITY 

This simple lesson is the teaching of Ai. In many 
a contest a feeble band of behevers has swept a legion 
from the earth. One has chased a thousand and two 
put ten thousand to flight. The philosopher entrench- 
ed behind his learning has been overcome by the sim- 
ple-faithed child of God. The philosophy that held 
its court in the centre of its brilliant school has been 
routed by the band of pure-souled saints. The sin 
that threatened to destroy a land whose minions were 
counted by thousands has been conquered and de- 
prived of power by the united onset of a devoted band. 
Then why not always.'^ When churches and saloons 
meet in conflict why is the victory ever with the saloon.^ 
Christian crusaders have power only in their purity 
and obedience. The days of defeat, when the hosts 
have mourned and the leaders have sat in the dust be- 
fore the ark of God, have been the days of degeneracy, 
when "cherem," that which has been devoted to God, 
treasure, influence, service, a vote, has been appro- 
priated to selfish ends, when Israel has sinned. A 
corrupt clergy, a faithless laity, this has crippled the 
energies of all the faithful, and made their cry of 
"Onward" give place to the wail of defeat. 

And what is true of the Church as a whole in its 
majestic movements is true of all its parts and all its 
warring sections. The Church is not the world any 
more than Israel was Canaan. The property and 
customs of the world are not the property and cus- 
toms of the Church, as the property of Canaan wa-s 






CONSTERNATION AT DEFEAT 255 

not the property of Israel for its personal use. The 
line between them was distinct. A blessing was on one 
side, a curse on the other, and this line has not been 
obliterated. There is such a line between the Church 
and the world. Efforts have been made to dim its out- 
line, to erase it altogether, that the Church and world 
might mingle, that the Church might do its work 
along the lines of worldly success, but these plans can- 
not succeed, for should the line of demarkation dis- 
appear the defects of the Church would declare and do 
declare that she has sinned. It is sin that is antago- 
nistic to God, and nothing else; not possessions in 
themselves considered ; it is sin against which God de- 
clares himself, and if sin be in Israel then God is 
against Israel. Principalities and powers are ar- 
rayed against her and her strength shall depart. The 
appropriation of the things of the world by the 
Church is its sure overthrow. Here, too, we learn that 
an individual cripples the world. Organization calls 
into play occult forces and makes some strange dis- 
closures : "One thing thou lackest," said Christ to a 
gifted young man. A whole city of forces within him 
was injured by one lack. 

"What shall I say when Israel tumeth their back 
upon their enemies?" 

We have now the answer to Joshua's question. We 
may say, Israel hath sinned. Up ! sanctify the people, 
for victory is impossible without purity, witliout indi- 
vidual obedience. The holiness of God forbids a bless- 



256 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

ing on a sinful body and the corruption of a member Is 
the disease of the whole body. There is no conceal- 
ment. Defeat is disclosure. Passion works to the 
countenance, so sin in the indi^'idual heart appears in 
the condition of the body to which the smner belongs. 
So vitally connected vrere the children of Israel that 
the theft of Achan troubled the whole camp, and the 
sin of the obscure member of the Church to-day helps 
to paralyze and destroy its power. It Is to the sinful 
member that the enemy points and condemns the whole 
on his account. Achan's sin was in appropriating 
that which was good, but which was devoted, '•cherem," 
to the Lord. That member of the Church who uses 
for his comfort or delight the '*devoted" things of the 
world, all good in themselves, may find at length a 
heavier burden to carry than his powers can support^ 
may find that he Is responsible for the failure of his 
Church before some town of Ai. I would not hke to 
go to the bar of God with the failure of a Church upon 
my shoulders. 

There is a solemn obhgation of obedience resting 
upon the children of God and a tampering with the 
unholy things of the world, with the wicked disposi- 
tions of the world as a repetition of Achan's sin. If 
the Church is impure, how can it attack impurity.^ If 
the Church is hypocritical, how can it defeat hypoc- 
risy.^ If the Church is in dissensions, how can it 
attack the wickedness of schism.^ If the Church Is 
stingy, how can it defeat lUiberality .'^ If the Church 



CONSTERNATION AT DEFEAT 257 

is haughty, how can it conquer pride? If the Church 
indulges in the amusements and vanities of the world, 
how can it conquer that which it has made its own de- 
light? Its power is spiritual, and disobedience severs 
its connection with spiritual supplies. The powerless 
Church has in the house or heart of some member an 
"accursed" thing, and its purification is its necessary 
work. 

My beloved people, we stand in this community as a 
part of the army of the Lord. This is no mean posi- 
tion. We battle in his name. For him we wish to con- 
quer every sin and bring into firm allegiance every 
heart. It is my wish, my aim, my hope, to carry every 
heart in this congregation for the Lord Jesus. I 
preach and pray for this purpose. I tarry with you 
only for this end. I have summoned you before giant 
sins for their conquest, and in the delay of victory I 
say, "Israel hath sinned. Up ! sanctify yourselves !" 

I summon you before the Lord to-day and pray 
confession, as in Achan's case. "Be sure your sin will 
find you out," whether it be the indulgence of your 
animosity, the gratification of your worldly spirit or 
the worship of the unslain idol in your heart. 

Oh ! for the Urim and the Thummim to call out the 
individual and purify the whole ! Our search with this 
day's study in mind need not be in the hearts of others, 
but in our own, and if beneath a covering of vii-tues 
we find the greed, tlie vanity, the sin of tlie world, let 
it find an instant and hearty repentance, tliat we may 



258 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

not be stoned in some valley of Achor, but be par- 
doned in the sweet valley of Humiliation. 

As we love the honor of Christ and the glory of 
his Church, and as we prize the spread of his Kingdom 
and the conversion of our friends, let us heed this les- 
son of the ages. I am sure that they who watch this 
Church will love it in its strength and beauty and will 
come to it as it resembles Christ. 

It is from distortions and failure of proper power 
that men turn. It is in the defeats of the Church that 
they read the record of her sins ; and her renewed 
purity and obedience, in which we shall cast off world- 
liness and all its snares, shall bring them in earnest 
cry for her blessings, willijigly^ reverently, instantly 
at her feet. 



XVIII 
A CHRISTMAS AFTERMATH 

"Gold, and frankincense, and myrrh." — Matthew 2:11. 

Christmas day has passed, with its music and 
mirth, its carols and comforts, its bounty and bless- 
ing, its generosity and good cheer, and I take this 
morning to renew all its merry wishes in the House of 
the Lord, and ask you what gifts you gave to the 
Christ of God. You remembered the children of your 
household, the friends of your family, the poor of 
your neighborhood, perchance, whom no one else re- 
called. You called to mind the sick, and flowers and 
fruit gladdened their moistened eyes. You thought 
of loved ones out of the family circle and awoke their 
fondest wishes for your happiness as they joyed over 
your remembrance. You spent many hours in the 
crowded stores among the beautiful works of art, the 
products of industrial toil, the wonders of every land. 
Hard times were forgotten — a stringent money mar- 
ket was ignored — your faces looked as they did montlis 
or years ago, before the long days came, with their 
longer nights of restless trouble and anxious thought. 
You bought something for the joy of a friend. 

The gifts are made, the day has gone, the season is 

259 



260 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

hurrying by, we are slipping back into the grooves 
again. With other friends, did you remember Christ? 
What treasure did you lay beside the cradle of the 
infant Redeemer? The first visit paid to him was 
made memorable by gifts. Wise men from the East 
reverently following the beacon light in the skies, 
found him in whom all prophecy was fulfilled, whose 
coming stirred the angel hosts to praise and brought 
their forms and their music within the compass of our 
earthly atmosphere. Absorbed in great thoughts con- 
cerning the infant child, meditating upon his advanc- 
ing glory and the splendor of his reign, the wise men 
did not forget the offerings, which their love dictated 
and his worth required, and so as they worshipped at 
his cradle, they gave gifts — gold, frankincense and 
myrrh. At this point of time, remote from the actual 
cradle of the Redeemer, we behold the majesty of the 
life then begun, the worth of the work then inaugu- 
rated, the splendor of the glory that was then ecHpsed 
in the earthly body. We see the heavens full of activity 
at the movements of the thousands of the redeemed who 
celebrate the grandeur of his saving work, and the 
earth itself is bright with the presence of the trans- 
formed souls who owe their change to his mighty 
power. So that as we turn to the cradle scene again 
and celebrate the commencement of that transcendent 
life, it is fit that while we worship we give gifts ; while 
adoring, we place before him gold, frankincense and 
myrrh. 



A CHRISTMAS AFTERMATH 261 

It is fitting that these gifts be individual. In the 
household at Christmas time there is a strange and 
beautiful secrecy. Many whispers are heard, and the 
charm of the gift-giving is in its personahty. The 
family does not give as a whole, but each member gives 
to every other some bit of personal handiwork, at 
least the individual token of thou ghtfuln ess. How 
much pleasure would be lost, how much value would be 
discounted if this personal element were removed; if 
only families and corporations and churches gave as 
composite bodies in united gifts ! And so it is essen- 
tial that the gifts to Christ should be individual. We 
may join in the praise that swells from the great con- 
gregation ; we may bow with the family, uniting in the 
ascription of adoration ; we may contribute to the fam- 
ily fund for some memorial gift; we may merge our 
thoughtfulness in the general regard for the season ; 
but he "whose name is above every name" loves to re- 
ceive the individual gifts that mark the personal 
thoughtfulness of his friends on earth. If you regard 
Christ as far removed from the associations of the 
world, as having no connection with the minutiae of 
each life, as so high as to be absorbed in loftier things 
than the passing events of this earth, tenuous, imper- 
sonal, unapproachable, tlien will your gift be small or 
entirely absent; but if you regard Christ Jesus iis he 
is, the personal friend and intimate compiuiion, the 
associate in every joy and sorrow, entering into all 
that concerns you, 'Svith you ahva}^ even unto the end 



262 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

of the world," then should your gift take a more prom- 
inent place and your selection bear appropriate rela- 
tion to liis pleasures and his worth. The child and the 
man may alike consider the gift he ought to make ; the 
gift it should be the pleasure of his life to bestow upon 
the Lord Jesus Christ. 

The early gifts were of three kinds — gold, frankin- 
cense and myrrh. These may be taken as an index of 
appropriate gifts to-day, prophetic and instructive. 
They were costly. These wise men did not find them 
by the roadside as they journeyed. They did not wait 
to obtain them as trinkets in the place where they 
might find the infant child. They did not come to 
them as an after-thought, and so were carelessly pro- 
vided, but they were costly gifts and were obtained 
with forethought before they set out upon their jour- 
ney. The gifts we off'er to the Redeemer are in strange 
contrast with his glory. How often are they the 
gleanings by the way, the careless trinkets that the 
bright shining of the sun upon our pathway shows 
gHmmering by the road ! They cost us little toil ; they 
have not burdened our souls by day and by night ; they 
have not prevented sleep nor caused pain. They are 
in strong disproportion to the gifts we bestow on 
earthly friends. 

Perhaps the blush of shame would color our cheeks 
if the Lord were to tell in this house all that each soul 
had given him during these passing days. We pro- 
fess to believe that to him we owe all we have and all 



A CHRISTMAS AFTERMATH 263 

we are to be ; that through him alone we are free from 
the power of sin ; that by him alone we overcome temp- 
tation; that from him only we expect to inherit all 
things ; that eternal gladness shall be ours because of 
him, and yet the value of the gifts we have bestowed 
on him is less than that we gave an infant child. We 
try to say that if the Lord were once again in the 
manger we would open our doors and take him in ; if 
he once again slept in Mary's arms we would bestow 
the gold, frankincense and myrrh. But the words 
choke us, for we know that still he lives to receive not 
only prayers and church praises, but the costly indi- 
vidual gifts of the sons of men. Christmas without a 
costly gift to Christ is a strange scene for the heavens 
to witness. Think of the eyes that look earthward 
from the palace of the great King. Think of the 
Master whose name the day bears, whose lowly birth 
inaugurated it, gazing on the scenes of earth. How 
marvellous the hilarity, the gaiety, the gift-giving 
without a thought of him who took captivity captive 
and brought gifts to men ! "God so loved that he gave 
his only begotten Son." Here was the gold, frankin- 
cense and myrrh of heaven and the gold of God should 
meet the gold of men ; frankincense from tlie skies 
should meet tlie frankincense from the earth ; the 
myrrh of the heavenly gift should meet the myrrh of 
the human o-ffcring. 

These gifts arc symbolic. Let us study tlieiu: 
The gold indicates vakie, implies toil and a willing 



264 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

heart. To part with this is to give up actual treasure, 
the noblest ore of the earth. 

The frankincense of fragrant odor and bitter taste 
was used mainly for sacrifices and in temple services. 
It, too, involved toil in its production. "It was ob- 
tained by successive incisions in the bark of a tree 
called the arbor thuris, the first of which yields the 
purest and whitest kind, while the product of the after 
incisions is spotted with yellow, and as it becomes old 
loses its whiteness altogether." The gold was the min- 
eral product of nature, and this was a vegetable prod- 
uct, and both involved human toil before ready for use. 

The myrrh was an aromatic of a like kind, pro- 
duced from a shrub employed for fumigation and used 
especially as an ingredient of a very precious oint- 
ment. It was again offered Christ in the mixture, 
wine mingled with myrrh, when he hung upon the 
cross. This, too, was a natural product, but was 
given to Christ only after it bore the evidence of hu- 
man toil in its preparation. The wise men did not 
bring crude gifts, nor the offerings of foreign lands, 
but what they themselves could produce from their 
own land. And we may be content to offer, not the 
cast-off finery of others, but that which bears evidence 
of our own toil and which Hes within the domain of our 
own powers. We are not called to give what lies be- 
yond our reach. 

Now, of the symbolic use, it is thought that the gold 
was given to the King in Christ, the incense to the 



A CHRISTMAS AFTERMATH 265 

Lord, the myrrh to him who was to taste of death, the 
Great High Priest. It is written in the Latin tongue 
that "by the gold is signified the Kingdom of Christ, 
by the frankincense the pontificate or High Priest- 
hood of Christ, by the myrrh the death of Christ." 
Others suggest that by these offerings is indicated 
both the divine and human nature of Christ. Another 
declares, "The myrrh as precious ointment may indi- 
cate the Prophet, the value of Israel ; the incense the 
office of High Priest ; the gold, the splendor of roy- 
alty." In that lowly place by the richness of these 
gifts the greatness of the babe was recognized. How 
strange to other Jewish peasants there, this adoration 
of this child of a Nazerene mother ! The crowded inn 
doubtless was emptied by curiosity as in the stable the 
wise men by symbolic gifts exalted before all the tiny 
babe into King, Priest, Saviour. These gifts were 
symbols of the faith of these men as much as of the 
nature and work of the life there begun. That they 
off'ered them to the lowly child with their worship em- 
phasizes that faith and causes it to make its mighty 
appeal to us. Where is the greatest ground for doubt, 
at the cradle of the infant or in the nineteenth cen- 
tury.? In the stable of the inn at Bethlehem or in this 
church of New York after eighteen hundred years of 
Christian history.? Under the star that pointed to this 
dwelling by its vertical beams, or under the swelling 
dome that lights a world full of the knowledge of the 
teachings of that life and of its transforming power? 



266 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

Is it harder to believe in the infant Saviour or the 
Glorified Redeemer, in the speechless Babe or in him 
whose words of wisdom have lightened the darkness of 
the world, whose deeds of mercy have made fragrant 
the centuries, whose promise of glory gleams in the 
open heavens ? Whether it is easier to deposit gifts to- 
day or then, whether gifts should be more costly now 
or then, I leave you each to answer. Had they turned 
back would the world have wondered? If you turn 
back will not they rise to condenm you, as they speak 
of their early gifts, gold, frankincense and myrrh? 

But what is the meaning in these gifts for us ? 

They indicate value, sacrifice, sweetness, or rich- 
ness, beauty, fragrance, or life, suffering, service. 

First, — The precious mineral gold declares the high 
value that should mark our gifts to Christ, and this 
valuation must be on the scale of him to whom the gift 
is made. Gold is value in every land — greenbacks are 
not. An article of diet rare and precious in one land 
may be quickly hurried to the ash heap in another. So 
it is value on the Christly estimate that must inhere in 
our Christmas gifts to Christ. 

We search for the things that are of value to God 
as you have searched the stores of this city for things 
of value to your friend. We strive to know his Hkes 
and pi*eferences as you have striven to know the de- 
sires of your friend. He has said and we recall it now, 
^Wisdom is more precious than rubies and all the 
things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto 



A CHRISTMAS AFTERMATH 267 

her." Here is a standard of value. Something better 
than material things. Let us try again. "The re- 
demption of the soul'is precious." The soul is precious 
enough to God to be redeemed. "I will make a man 
more precious than fine gold; even a man than the 
golden wedge of Ophir." Again we learn the divine 
estimate of values. "A man's life consisteth not in the 
abundance of the things that he possesseth," "the Hfe 
is more than meat." "I am come that they might have 
life and that they might have it more abundantly." 
"Give me thine hearf; that is, give me thy life, is the 
divine call and the index of the divine valuation. Here, 
then, we find the value of a Christly gift. As gold is 
the best of material values, useful in all lands, so life 
is highest of spiritual values and useful in all worlds. 
A lesser gift than this will be less than the gold of the 
wise men. Give, then, your lives to Christ. It will 
not be too great a gift, for he has given the gold of 
heaven, his life, for you. I pray you, do not think a 
few stray thoughts which could not otherwise be em- 
ployed, a little spasmodic emotion that some trouble 
has awakened, a little affection that some glimpse of 
his profound love has stirred, is a worthy gift. The 
gold was the first gift as tliey opened tlieir treju>ures. 
So is the life, the wliole hfe, that for wliicli nothing 
can be given in excliange, to be the first offering to 
Christ in the modem celebration. 

Second, — Let us think of tlie franlclncense. Still let 
us keep in mind the divine estimate of values, as above 



268 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

the material. This was the fruit of the cut tree. The 
knife was employed in its production. It was fit for 
sacrificial offerings, therefore an emblem of the suf- 
fering that we may give to Christ. There are few of 
us that know enough of the frankincense gift. Here 
and there in the world's history it has been given. You 
have seen the painting of the maiden in the amphithe- 
atre into which the stai*\'ed Hons have just been ad- 
mitted, who pause a moment ere they pounce upon 
their prey, while some one has thrown a flower to the 
martyr that brings a golden gleam to her eyes. Here 
was a frankincense gift. There are none who may 
not offer it. Suffering for Christ lies in the privileges 
of each soul. The cutting of the purse-strings (recall 
the sorrowful J'oung man of Scripture), the severing 
of hours of solid worth, the opening of the desires that 
are set on other things that their rich juices may be 
given to Christ, the self-denial for his sake, are most 
acceptable gifts. 'Tis the value that he loves and 
prizes. He showed its worth in his own gift to the 
world. He laid aside the royalty of heaven, became 
poor, of no reputation, was more marred than any of 
the sons of men, and there exuded from his hfe con- 
tinuously that which was bitter to the taste but of 
fragrant odor in the world, that suffering in which he 
was made perfect, and which was the heavenly frank- 
incense. We are to meet it with like offering. "I be- 
seech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, 
that ye present your bodies, a living sacrifice, holy, ac- 



A CHRISTMAS AFTERMATH 269 

ceptable unto God, which is your reasonable ser- 
vice." 

It is not meet to give to Christ that which is simply 
agreeable to us, which comports well with our ease and 
pleasure ; but we should offer those gifts in which are 
tears and blood; that for want of which we have suf- 
fered, which may have cost us earthly friendships, a 
severed home, a bleeding heart. He who has never 
given to Christ what it has taken the knife to produce 
has never given the frankincense of the Christmas gift. 
I pray you make that gift at this glad season, not 
smallness out of bounty, but bounty out of want. I 
have called it beauty, for the highest loveliness of earth 
is in the sacrifice of self for another's joy. The one 
"more marred than any" was "the chief among ten 
thousand, the one altogether lovely." 

Third. — Let us consider the myrrh. Here was 
sweetness — a precious ointment. It is the service of 
the earthly child — prayer, praise, charity, activity of 
the spiritual powers. A box of ointment, very precious, 
was broken for his use on earth and received his grate- 
ful thanks against the murmurs of the disciples. Christ 
gave himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God 
for a swcet-smclHng savour. "We arc unto God a 
sweet savour," says the Scripture. The fonnal ac- 
knowledgment of God's power and goodness, tJie credal 
assent to liis lioHncss, docs not contain tlie myrrh. To 
Christ nothing is more accept^ible than hearty service. 
He calls for it with every breath. Bowing of head tuid 



270 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

genuflections are too stately ; they are like the dry 
husk out of which the fragrance has gone. In the 
service of the soul, various as the needs of humanity, 
the Lord takes abundant delight, and he who would 
imitate the wise men of the East, in their gifts of gold, 
frankincense and myrrh, must give to the glorious Re- 
deemer the Hf e, the suffering of self-denial, the service 
of the soul. 

* 'Saviour, is there anything 
I have failed to bring? 
Lies my offering at thy feet 
Incomplete? 

"Lord, bethink thee, I am poor; 
Slender is my store; 
Yea, my best is nothing worth 
Even on earth, 

"Even to men: Oh! then, how small 
To thee. Lord of all. 
Who, creating worlds anew, 
As the dew, 
"Sweep them lightly from their place 
In the fields of space; 
Count the universe as naught 
But a thought. 

"Saviour, is there anything 
I have failed to bring? 
Lies my offering incomplete 
At thy feet?" 

Answered he: "If thou thy life hast brought. 

Will crossing mine in naught; 

Faith that shall outlast thy breath, 

Strong in death; 



A CHRISTMAS AFTERMATH 271 

"Matters not thy world's estate. 
Be it small or great, 
This thy offering, thou dost bring 
Everything! 

"I am satisfied. 

Having all beside. 
Since that erring heart of thine. 
On my shrine 

"'Broken, contrite, suppliant lies — 

Sv/ee*;'>st sacrifice! 
I^i that ^fFering thou dost bring 
Everything." 



XIX 

THE FINALITY AND BLESSEDNESS OF THE 
SPIRITUAL LIFE 

"We shaU be like him."— I John 3:9. 

The finality and blessedness of the spiritual life 
invites our thought. 

"Few and evil have the days of the years of my hfe 
been/' said the aged Jacob to Pharaoh, though he had 
then reached an hundred and thirty years. 

"I am now eighty-three years old/' said the ven- 
erable Baron Kottwitz, the spiritual father of Tho- 
luck, to a friendly visitor. "God has made me a pres- 
ent of three years, for the Bible says : 'The days of 
one's years are three score and ten ; and if, by reason 
of strength they be four score years,' and so I must 
constantly be expecting the messenger to tell me that 
my time has come." 

If we look forward, we think this life will be too 
short for the completion of all our plans ; if we look 
back, we know that our thought has been realized. 
"Few" are the days at best, and, though progress is 
the law of spiritual hfe, yet at the margin of this 

272 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 273 

world we are not what we want to be. There are still 
experiences which we have not knownj there are heights 
which we have not reached ; we are sure that we have 
not traversed the whole domain of being. We are not 
yet satisfied with our spiritual attainments. Though 
we are permitted to see royal exhibits of Christhkeness 
in some, though the transparency of some lives reveals 
the working of the true Christly spirit within, yet is 
there room for larger growth, for more perfect sym- 
metry. The holiest with all their growth use words of 
bitter self-condemnation, and still reach up into the 
possibilities of nobler being. 

We are assured that the end of spiritual growth is 
not attained in this world, that all that is here at- 
tained is but preparatory for the more bHssful ad- 
vancement when freed from the Umitations of the 
flesh. 

Of Rev. Thomas H. Skinner, D.D., Professor 
Henry B. Smith said: "His personal power was also 
enhanced, year by year, with the increase of his spir- 
itual life ; he became more and more a living epistle, a 
gospel of God's grace, known and read of all men. 
Vexed and perplexing questions were merged in a 
higher life. Revealed facts took the place of disputed 
propositions. The living Christ took the place of the 
doctors of the schools and with advantage. Thus he 
lived and grew day by day, in his serene and hallowed 
old age, toward the measure of the stature of a perfect 
man in Christ Jesus. He was called to bo a saint and 



274 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

he was always fulfilling his calHng, not counting him- 
self to have attained, but ever pressing onward." 
When the body of Professor Smith himself lay before 
the pulpit of the Church of the Covenant in the pres- 
ence of an assembly representing what is highest and 
best in American culture and scholarship. Dr. Prentiss 
said of him, "I do not beheve that for many a day any 
redeemed spirit has entered into the presence of the 
Son of God, who had enshrined him more completely 
in his utmost being, loved and strove to serve him more 
ardently, or gazes with a more exulting and large- 
minded joy upon that beatific vision than he who has 
passed away from our poor fellowship to that of the 
church triumphant." And yet Dr. Smith had said of 
himself, with all his superlative attainments and colos- 
sal results of toil, "It sometimes seems to me as if my 
life's work, what I ought to have accompUshed, would 
never be more than half done." 

At the Semi-Centennial celebration of Dr. Hodge's 
professorship at Princeton, the venerable divine was 
eulogized in many most emphatic addresses. Some 
one said of him, "It must require a great deal of grace 
to bear all this." Said he, "I never felt so mean in my 
Hfe." 

There is a perfect life, but it is not known here. 
There may be glorious fullness in single elements of 
character, there may be vast accumulations of spirit- 
ual treasure, but no soul is satisfied with its acquisi- 
tions. Even the human eye detects the wants of the 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 275 

spirit and the lavish praise of friends is followed by 
the loud lament at personal deficiencies. 

The steadfast growth through three score years 
and ten does result in noble character ; the attainments 
possible to every soul in this world stir the deepest de- 
sires and lure to the grandest efforts, but the fact that 
needs no testimony beyond the individual experience 
remains, that the spiritual life cannot have reached its 
finality under the most favorable circumstances in this 
world. 

Between the individual rich in Christly virtues, 
sweet with the Christly essence and prodigal in Christ- 
ly toil, and the Christ himself blessed and glorious, 
there is an amazing difference. It takes the whole 
brotherhood of earth to make the one living Christ 
and yet the very perfection of God is presented as the 
ideal and goal of the individual endeavor. "Be ye 
therefore perfect, even as your father in heaven is 
perfect," is the teaching and call of Christ himself, 
and the assertion of John is that, "we shall be Uke 
him." Ages before, the Psalmist, disturbed by liis 
own likeness, in which he saw so much for distress and 
shame, cried out with exultation, "I shall be satisfied 
when I awake with thy likeness." The change of 
worlds will only continue and doubtless hasten the full 
development of the spiritual life. I cannot believe that 
the work will be consummated by death. We cross the 
border line of the two worlds, but are the same on 
either side. 



276 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

There Is here possibility of growth, the same abides 
beyond, and when the spirit is disrobed of flesh, the 
process will not suddenly usher into the absolute full- 
ness of glorified being. We begin beyond as we end 
here, and the whole character of our earthly hfe is 
disclosed in our spiritual appearance without the body. 
"One star differeth from another in glory," so also do 
we differ as we enter the purely spiritual world. There 
is concealment of defects here, there is the parading of 
one or two prominent qualities, but the exact propor- 
tions will appear when once we stand on the farther 
shore. There will be no successful attempt to appear 
other than we are, and the wish will doubtless prevail 
in many spirits that a better use had been made of the 
opportunities of this world. But the privilege of en- 
largement will continue under more favorable circum- 
stances. 

The issue of the spiritual life here, then, is the op- 
portunity of completing it in heaven. The finality of 
the earthly section of it is the redemption of the spirit 
from the guilt and consequences of sin, from all fur- 
ther contact with it, and the securing of a home where 
only the most inspiring and helpful influences shall be 
known. No sin that has ever been committed shall be 
suffered to cast its shadow on the life, nor mar its in- 
creasing beauty; no fear lest after all some bhght 
should wither the being, some unf orgotten evil should 
appear with its condemning voice, shall ever rise in any 
soul. All the baleful influences of this world are ut- 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 277 

terly removed, the spirit is as sweet and clean as was 
that of Adam when he came from the creating act of 
God, and it is as full as its earthly growth has per- 
mitted. It is free from all self-condemnation, and is 
in such a state of harmony with, God that intercourse 
is blessed since perfect love has cast out fear, glad- 
ness fills the soul, its eternal salvation is consciously 
secured, and the possession of the inheritance of glory 
has been obtained. There is no repining over the past, 
since God has wrought his glory from the ruins of 
this life ; there is no anxiety for the future, since all 
things lie open for the soul's use and enjoyment. The 
great work of Christ satisfies the soul meditating upon 
the divine justice in thus cancelling the sin of the 
world, and the consciousness of the willing and active 
purpose of God to save all that will be saved removes 
the pain at the absence of any loved ones of this world. 
All the saving wish or purpose that can be in any 
soul is in the divine and has been wrought into its 
highest expression of activity and suffering in the 
plan of God to save. The soul is full of blessedness 
to the limit of its capacity, but assured that in ages 
to come it shall know and experience yet more abun- 
dantly of the infiniteness of the divine nature. 

We have therefore no example of the real finality 
of the spiritual life. Faith alone makes it known to 
us. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath 
it entered into the heart of man, the tilings which Gcxl 
hath prepared for them that love liim, but God hath 



278 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

revealed them unto us by his spirit." We see by faith 
the glorious outlines of our own future being and re- 
ceive from the spirit of God new evidences of the 
things not seen. As Christ is the daily support of the 
infleshed spiritual life, communicating to it of his full- 
ness, though the bars and fetters of the earthly condi- 
tion prevent the acceptance of but a modicum of his 
provision, so to die is gain, the crumbling walls of 
this earthly house giving freedom and expansion to 
the escaping spirit; with this freedom from human 
hmitations begin the richest experiences of the spirit- 
ual hfe. 

A sagacious student of nature and revelation has 
said that the law of continuity throughout the space- 
worlds and the time-worlds teaches us that the future 
life will be the counterpart of this ; an inheritance for 
which we are trained here, as the heir grows into 
acquaintance with the large and rich estate upon 
which he was born. And as the caterpillar becomes 
the butterfly by casting its skin and unfolding parts 
previously concealed and immature, as the petal of the 
rose is just its green leaf altered in texture, color and 
form to fit it for a higher ministry, the eye of the 
naturalist discerning the identity of type that exists 
between them, so this very mortal of ours shall put on 
immortality, and the life to come will only be the blos^- 
som of the life that now is. We are learning more and 
more through a clearer understanding of the law of 
continuity that heaven is not so much a distant bourne 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 279 

towards which we are to move as a present experience 
which we are to reahze; not a sudden giving but a 
gradual winning ; that the kingdom of heaven does not 
come to earth, as we pray that it may do, but must 
grow on earth. All the correlations of the natural 
world with the spiritual are surely striking proofs 
that they are parts of one and the same great reme- 
dial scheme, and that they have the same great object 
in view, the one in a lower, the other in a higher form, 
viz., "the glory of God in the redemption of fallen 
man." We are even "led up the great aisle of nature 
to the altar of Calvary." 

It is not in what we have, but in what we are that 
the divine being takes delight, so that all the tendency 
of his dealings with us and the plans he forms for us 
immediately affect the personal character. Even the 
glories of heaven into which the redeemed spirit is 
ushered are not spectacular for the eternal enjoyment 
of the spirit, but, like all here, promote its rapid 
growth into the likeness of God himself. The exalted 
forms of being, the strength and blessedness of clieru- 
bim and seraphim will not stir envy, but awake to the 
instant use of the means provided and at hiind for tlie 
attainment of like power and beauty. The eternal 
glory of heaven, as hinted to us in tlie book of Revela- 
tion, is not sensuous but eminently spiritual aiul sug- 
gestive of spiritual growth. The jewels that are used 
as symbols of its beauty are all the complete forms of 
the crystal. In carbon we liave coal, tlien bort, then 



280 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

the diamond as the perfect form of carbon. In alum- 
ina we have clay, then corundum (or emery ), then ruby 
or sapphire the perfect form. In sihca we have sand, 
then quartz, crystal, flint, then emerald and topaz, the 
perfect form. So the spiritual glories of heaven are 
the perfected forms of life and the choicest and grand- 
est forms of spiritual character, the dross removed, 
the beauty perfected. 

The real joy in heaven is not in the place, nor the 
associations, nor the opportunities, but in the hfe, the 
glorified elements of worthy character. From the black 
coal pits of sinful being,- the lustrous diamond shall 
appear flashing in the radiance of the infinite glory 
of Christ. The spiritual life advances to the perfect- 
ness of Christ. Not always will the buff*eting storms 
of Hfe drive you upon the rocks, not always will you 
bewail the weakness and littleness of your spirit, not 
always will you wrestle unsuccessfully with the prince 
of the powers of the air, not always will a faltering 
purpose give you pain, not always will conscience 
smite and honest sorrow over failings fill your hours, 
not always will your ^dew of self give trouble and dis- 
tress, but all the glory that is in Christ, all the sweet- 
ness and superiority of being that marked his hfe 
shall be in you, for "we shall be like him," "being con- 
fident of this very thing, that he who hath begun a 
good work in you will perform it until the day of 
Jesus Christ." 

The spiritual life, then, the real creation of God, 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 281 

the real work of God, ultimates in godliness in the 
human spirit. He only who is created anew in Christ 
Jesus can look forward to such blessedness. It is pre- 
dicted only of those in whom Christ is living in the 
power and beauty and constructiveness of his unique 
being. To be a Christian, then, is no trifling matter. 
To delay decision concerning the spiritual Hfe is to 
imperil the soul's possession of these infinite possibili- 
ties. The day passes, the night comes, and the unre- 
newed man goes forth from the body. He has rejected 
God's claims, he has refused the provisions of Christ, 
he has neglected all the opportunities for securing the 
treasures of spiritual value. Dead to God, in that he 
has no communion with him, without a ray of spiritual 
intelligence, how shall he march into the glorified com- 
pany whose presence, whose toils, whose thoughts, 
whose joys have been ignored in the world? We are 
all too near the borders of another world to treat this 
thought with indifference. Where the tree falleth, 
there it shall lie, and the finality of the spiritual life 
puts the very emphasis of its glory upon the darker 
portion of those who refuse the call of Christ and re- 
generating influence of the Holy Spirit. 

During his last years, Strauss, whose ''LiiV of 
Jesus" attained some celebrity from its hostile charac- 
ter, when wearing out under disease, wrote a confes- 
sion in which he casts aside the associations and rc-- 
straints of custom a!ul tradition, lionosMy renounces 
all deceptive accommodations, denies to Jesus any dt>- 



282 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

cisive part in man's religious and moral life, and con- 
cludes that a ^'fantastic fanaticism" is his chief char- 
acteristic, so far as we know anything about him. Of 
this work Professor H. B. Smith says : "His work en- 
titled 'A Confession,' not in the sense of the older con- 
fessions, like that of Augustine depicting the wrest- 
ling of the soul with the powers of sin and unbehef, 
nor even like that of Rousseau, a frank revelation of a 
struggling natural life, beset by temptations, but an 
account of the progress of a desolating creed, until 
ideahsm is merged in materialism and pantheism in 
atheism. It is not a work of search or a scientific 
criticism ; still less an inspiring revelation of ennob- 
ling struggles and aspirations ; but rather a dissec- 
tion of the slow and fatal process of spiritual death, 
of the utter extinction of all that philosophers and 
divines have called spiritual hfe, the hfe of God in the 
soul of man." Here is a sad but striking contrast to 
the truth we are presenting. 

The blessedness of the spiritual Hfe appears in a 
statement of its various conditions. On earth it gives 
the assurance of a secured glory hereafter. If that 
were all, the blessedness might be counted superlative; 
if all the danger were taken from the Hfe plunge into 
sin, if all the fear lest the evil of tliis life be perpetu- 
ated beyond were taken away so that the duties of this 
Hfe might be performed with a quiet spirit and the 
soul at length go forth with steady step, how grand a 
blessing were here! The spirit that is conscious of 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 283 

renewed life in Christ has no need to worry or fret 
about the future; it is all safe, mansions are pre- 
pared; in due time the Lord will come for you, the 
gates swing open, the head-pieces be lifted up and the 
King of Glory as your conductor enter in with you. 
But this is not all. Let the comforted mourners tell 
their story, the strengthened strugglers sing their 
song, the delivered captives proclaim their joy, the 
supported millions in every condition rehearse the 
blessings of their spiritual helps. Youth and age de- 
clare in rhythmic verse, and solemn prose, in the 
matchless music of the symphony and on the speaking 
canvas, the story of the blessedness of the spiritual 
children of God. 

Martyrs have told of their exultant feelings and 
triumphant joys in the midst of hostile foes. Prison 
cells have echoed to glad songs, and all forms of suf- 
fering have been ennobled by the sustaining power of 
the divine grace, while all the joys of life have been 
enhanced, its treasures multiplied, and its ordinary 
experiences enriched with constant favors belonging 
only to those of a spiritual mind. Death has lost its 
power, the pardoning grace of Christ has removed its 
sting, and the spirit, casting aside the body witli a 
conqueror's cry, has risen to the larger blessedness of 
the heavenly world. 

This blessedness may be said to consist: 

1. In the spiritual association. 

The spirit will be with him who bore its sorrows and 



284 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

removed its sin, whose glorified personality in the midst 
of the ransomed multitudes shall stir their adoration 
and elicit their unceasing praise. The Lamb which 
is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall 
lead them unto living fountains of waters. All the 
blessed and holy shall be in harmonious fellowship. 
"There shall in no wise enter in anything that de- 
fileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or 
maketh a lie ; but they which are written in the Lamb's 
book of Hfe." The great and good, the renowned of 
every age, patriarchs, prophets, apostles, the sainted 
spirits of the Christian ages shall all in\dte to glad 
communion and delighted intercourse. 

2. In the ividening of JiJiowIedge. 

The grasp of spiritual truths has been but feeble in 
the world ; some have risen to a comprehension of the 
glorious thoughts of God, and kindly given the fruit- 
age of their riper spirits to the narrower sons of men ; 
but in that final stage of spiritual Hf e there will be a 
broadening of the capacity of every spirit, and the 
dark and difBcult problems will find easy solution ; the 
reduction of the material world to a memory, and the 
substitution of a more complete instrument than that 
now used will enhance the blessedness of those whose 
fettered spirits have walked in ignorance of the sub- 
lime things of God. 

3. In increase of power. 

The struggle for a little self-control, for a victory 
over sin, will be remembered with wonder in a new 



THE SPIRITUAL LIFE 285 

experience of perfect power to do according to the 
divine will. Never overcome by adverse power, never 
drooping through over-burdened hours, never wasted 
by expended energy, the spirit will be competent for 
all the allotted work, for all the attempted effort. In 
the personal vigor and might and not in a delegated 
strength will the glory of the soul be found. It will 
reach a condition in which every particle of dross is 
refined away, which responds in delicate harmonies to 
the softest whisper of the wind-like spirit, into which 
the finest atom of sinful desire shall never enter and 
whose beauty shall be that of him who* is altogether 
lovely. 

4. In superlative enjoyment. 

There is no mockery in heaven. The spirit is made 
for joy, for dehght in things delectable. These are 
provided in prodigal abundance. Every taste will be 
gratified, every desire will find its object. To the 
spiritual children of God there is given an inheribuice 
incorruptible, undefiled and that fadeth not away. 
"The kings of the earth do bring their glory and 
honor into it." 

5. In personal goodness. 

That which is satisfying to God is no loss so to the 
soul, and the attainment of personal purity, the re- 
alization of the dreams of the devoutest hours of enrtli 
in a spotless character, an individual iutcllloviuv, a 
calm, sweet holy life, a personality in which duist 
beholds himself as in a mirror, rejoicino- in his com- 



286 SPIRITUAL SANITY 

pleted work, this is both the finahty and the blessed- 
ness of the spiritual life. 

Once more I hear the voice of the Son of God saying 
to us each, "I am come that they might have life and 
that they might have it more abundantly." 



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